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THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 


THE 
FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 


By  LOUISE  JORDAN  MILN 


Author  of 
'Mr,  Wur  "The  Purple  Mask/'  etc. 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 

Publishers  New  York 

Published  by  arrangement  with  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


Copyright,  Jp20,  by 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


All  rights  reserved 


Eighth  Printing 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


GIFT 


mo 


Sebttatton 


TO  DAGMAR,  MY  DAUGHTER 

*^She  who  was  kindest  when  fortune  was  blindest, 
Bearing  through  winter  the  blossoms  of  spring,^* 

London,  SefUvibcr  j,  ig20 


887 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 


CHAPTER  I 

A  LL  Chinese  home-life  starts  with  one  great  un- 
*■  ^  derlying  advantage — physical  beauty. 

And  it  has  many  others. 

Every  Chinese  is  born  into  surroundings  of  pre- 
eminent beauty — beauty  of  form,  beauty  of  color, 
beauty  of  exquisite  juxtapositions — natural  beauty  and 
beauty  of  all  things  that  are  made;  into  beauty,  and 
into  an  almost  untainted  atmosphere  of  good-taste  and 
intrinsic  kindliness. 

Consciously  or  unconsciously  every  Chinese  is  a  sin- 
cere lover  of  nature  and  of  everything  lovely.  No 
other  people  has  so  stern  and  uncompromising  a  sense 
of  justice,  so  ready  a  sense  of  humor,  more  balance, 
more  unflinching  loyalty,  or  less  exaggerated  estimate 
of  the  importance  of  self.  It  is  a  proud  people  without 
vanity — a  self-reliant,  strong  people,  lacking  brutality; 
suave  without  affectation,  dignified  without  self-as- 
sertion— free  from  ridiculousness,  industrious,  con- 
tented ;  hard-working  dreamers  who,  too,  are  shrewdly 
practical,  honest  above  all  other  races,  home-keeping, 
home-loving;  first  of  all  peoples  in  its  love  of  children, 
and  in  its  chivalrous  treatment  and  just  estimate  of 
womanhood. 

The  clan  of  Ch'eng  had  all  these  characteristics — in- 


2  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

deed  few  Chinese  lack  them — but  for  centuries  it  had 
suffered  from  one  outstanding  disadvantage :  prolific  in 
its  marriages,  those  nuptials  rarely  had  resulted  in  the 
birth  of  a  girl.  The  gods  had  been  besought  and 
bribed,  offerings  made  lavishly,  vows  proffered,  temples 
built,  but  all  to  scant  avail,  for  still  the  wives  of  the 
family  brought  forth  men  children  only. 

Since  a  girl  must  be  dowered,  the  Chinese  poor  pray 
for  a  preponderance  of  sons,  but  for  a  great  and  rich 
noble  to  be  daughterless  is  to  be  afflicted  and  pitied. 

A  lady  of  the  Ch'engs  had  invented  China's  sweetest 
wind  instrument,  and  composed  three  of  the  great 
classic  love-songs,  and  at  a  time  of  sharp  peril  had  won 
back  to  their  allegiance  the  revolting  aborigines  by  her 
diplomacy,  her  beauty  and  her  playing  of  the  flute. 
Another  had  invented  an  imperial  glaze,  one  had  im- 
proved the  telescope,  and  discovered  a  constellation,  an- 
other had  excelled  all  the  other  court  ladies  at  em- 
broidering, another — a  poetess  of  the  T*ang  dynasty — 
had  enriched  Chinese  literature,  one — when  a  decadence 
of  classical  learning  threatened — opened  a  school,  and, 
lecturing  from  behind  a  crimson  curtain,  to  some  hun- 
dred men  and  youths,  averted  the  catastrophe,  and  one 
had  eaten  the  peaches  of  immortality  that  grew  in  the 
garden  of  Hsi  Wang  Mu,  the  lady  of  the  West,  and 
that  ripen  but  once  in  three  thousand  years,  and  is 
now  a  god  with  the  gods.  But  these  were  Ch'engs  but 
by  marriage,  and  had  been  all  but  barren  of  daughters ; 
and  the  few  girls  bom  to  the  family  had  been  ordinary, 
in  appearance  and  in  gifts;  none  of  the  few  had 
achieved  distinction,  done  China  or  her  own  clan  a 
great  service  or  made  an  imperial  marriage. 

But  nearly  a  thousand  years  and  more  ago  when 
Marco  Polo,  the  Venetian,  was  friend  and  gossip  to 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  3 

the  great  Kublai  Khan,  the  first  Mongol  Emperor,  a 
foremost  soothsayer,  in  trance,  had  foretold  that  when 
in  far  years  to  come  China  should  sink  low,  and 
threaten  to  pass  out  into  international  nothing,  a  girl 
should  be  born  to  a  prince  of  Ch'eng,  a  girl  who  would 
journey  far  from  home,  suffer  and  learn  from  foreign 
influence,  and  return  to  her  homeland  to  save  and 
restore  it.  And  whatever  the  Lis,  the  Sungs  and  the 
Paos  thought  of  the  old  prophecy,  the  Ch'engs  held  to 
it  stoutly,  and  selected  their  wives  with  even  more  than 
the  much  care  usual  in  such  great  families ;  that  those 
brides  might  be  worthy  mothers  of  the  girl  savior  of 
China. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  the  head  of  the  house  now,  had 
been  so  remarkable  in  person,  so  remarkable  in  ability, 
that  she  had  added  not  meanly  to  the  prestige  of  her 
husband's  family.  And  when  in  dying  he  decreed  that 
she  should  rule  in  his  stead,  no  one  resented  it,  and 
their  eldest  son  least  of  all. 

To  be  a  Chinese  widow  is  not  always  the  best  of 
luck.  But  a  great  Chinese  lady,  who  has  borne  many 
sons  and  lived  greatly,  may  wear  her  weeds  with  a 
difference.  And,  if  the  history  of  Chinese  widowhood 
were  written  adequately,  a  Western  world-wide  mis- 
apprehension would  have  cause  to  hang  its  head  low. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  had  lived  greatly,  and  she  had  borne 
her  lord  seven  sons.  She  had  known  great  joys  and 
two  grinding  sorrows :  the  death  of  her  husband,  and, 
still  sharper,  that  she  had  borne  him  no  daughter. 

Shaos  had  for  centuries  begotten  more  girls  than 
boys,  and  that  was  not  the  least  of  the  several  good 
reasons  why  the  bride  of  the  young  heir  of  the  Ch'eng 
clan  had  been  selected  from  the  house  of  Shao.  But 
the  ill-luck  of  the  Ch'engs  still  dogged  them,  and  no 


4  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"lose-money-goods"  came  to  play  with  and  tyrannize 
over  the  seven  kisty  boys  that  Yiin  bore  her  lord. 

She  felt,  and,  to  do  him  justice,  so  did  Ch'eng  O,  her 
lord,  that  the  fault  should  not  be  laid  at  her  door,  for 
Ch'eng  Yiin  was  one  of  six  sisters,  and  the  niece  of 
almost  a  score  of  aunts. 

While  their  youngest  boy  was  still  at  her  breast  O, 
the  husband,  died,  and  the  wife,  still  young  in  years, 
became  formally  what  in  fact  she  had  been  for  some 
years:  regnant.  Neither  of  these  two  things  was  in 
the  least  odd — neither  her  potency  in  wifehood,  nor 
her  absolutism  in  widowhood — for  both  are  of  daily 
occurrence  in  China,  especially  among  the  rich  and 
powerful  caste. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  rigorous  in  all  the  obsequious 
observance  of  mourning.  For  O  she  wore  the  coarse 
colorless  hempen  dress  of  bereavement,  lived  in  se- 
clusion, grieved  turbulently,  omitting  no  one  of  the 
hundred  hard  rites  of  mourners,  except  only  the  fast- 
ing— since  she  still  suckled  a  babe.  But  even  in  the  first 
wild  torment  of  her  loss  she  set  herself  determinedly 
to  end  the  old  curse  that  for  centuries  had  smirched 
the  luster  of  their  clan.  She  married  her  sons  early 
and  carefully,  and  as  each  daughter-in-law  came  into 
her  control  she  received  the  girl  and  new  chattel  with 
warmth,  and  continued  to  treat  her  with  more  indul- 
gence than  a  daughter-in-law  can  claim  as  a  right.  For 
Ch'eng  Yiin  knew  that  while  sorrowful  women  and 
women  of  most  self-control  are  more  apt  to  conceive 
sons,  spoiled  and  self-indulgent  wives  are  the  more  apt 
to  bear  daughters. 

Six  wives  one  after  the  other  came  into  the  house, 
and  were  heaped  with  kindness.  None  proved  child^ 
less.  Babies  came  thick  and  fast — fat,  beautiful  babies^ 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  5 

bom  one  and  all  with  the  magic  triple  bracelet  of  good 
luck  on  its  wrinkled  yellow  wrist — ^and  one  had  it 
twice.  Soon  the  courtyard  over-ran  with  babies  and 
the  soft  patter  of  tiny  plump  feet  and  a  rain  of  tender 
young  laughing.  But  the  grandmother,  who  adored 
them,  sat  apart  and  watched  them  askance — for  when 
her  eldest  grandchild  was  sixteen,  and  the  lot  numbered 
thirty-seven,  there  was  not  a  girl  child  among  them. 

The  concubines  that  Ch'eng  Yiin  bought  for  her  sons 
would  have  peopled  a  village,  and  soon  did  people  a 
hillside;  and  their  purchase  and  keep  would  have 
strained  the  purse  of  any  family  but  moderately  rich 
even  in  China.  Three  of  the  secondary  wives  did  have 
daughters,  but  one  girl  died  at  birth,  and  the  others 
lived  but  a  year. 

To  Chinese  minds  the  pillorying  of  a  little  child  is 
not  justice,  and  the  child  of  a  concubine  is  of  legitimate 
birth.  Indeed,  the  concubine  is  of  honorable,  if  sec- 
ondary status.  Ch'eng  Yiin  would  have  preferred  a 
granddaughter  born  of  a  first  wife — because  the  young 
wives  of  her  choosing  were  all  of  distinguished  lineage 
which  might  fairly  be  expected  to  bequeath  desirable 
traits  even  on  offspring  engendered  from  loins  of 
Ch'eng.  But  failing  such  a  granddaughter  the  woman 
would  have  knelt  by  the  cradle  of  the  concubine's 
daughter,  and  almost  would  have  worshiped  it — and 
had.     But  no  girl  child  came  to  stay. 

Year  after  year,  almost  month  after  month,  the  ser- 
vants went  forth  far  and  wide,  clad  in  their  best  liver- 
ies, carrying  as  gifts  to  kindred  and  friends,  baskets 
and  trays  of  the  red  eggs  with  which  the  Chinese  an- 
nounce the  birth  of  a  son.  And  Ch'eng  Yiin  grimly 
watched  them  go.  And  when  her  favorite  daughter-in- 
law  disappointed  her  for  the  third  time  Ch'eng  Yun 


6  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

shook  her  fist  in  the  face  of  a  god,  and  slacked  it  of  in- 
cense. "What's  the  sense  of  paying  a  god  who  won't  or 
can't  do  his  part?"  she  said  bitterly.  She  was  a  utilita^* 
rian  and  had  little  use  and  as  little  respect  for  a  hier- 
archy that  was  purely  ornamental.  She  believed  in 
give-and-take  and  in  all  fair  reciprocity.  To  her  mind 
worship  was  a  payment.  She  worshiped  Confucius  and 
Mencius — whose  names  she  must  not  speak — because 
they  had  bettered  China,  and  left  guideposts  to  Chinese 
morality  and  sanity  for  all  time.  She  worshiped  her 
ancestors  because  they  had  given  her  life  and  China  and 
a  gorgeous  heritage  of  good  things;  a  love  of  books, 
and  education  and  mind  to  read  them,  music,  birds, 
flowers,  wealth,  the  man  of  men  for  husband  and  mate 
—-and  gift  and  accomplishment  to  appreciate  and  enjoy 
— ^pride  of  race,  love  of  country,  a  lien  on  the  here- 
after. 

To-day  she  was  angry  with  the  gods,  and  she  in- 
tended the  special  god  who  had  so  specially  failed  hei 
to  know  it.  She  had  lost  her  temper  with  heaven — 
and  her  disappointment  was  petulant  and  spiteful,  and 
all  her  people  avoided  her,  as  far  as  they  could,  ser- 
vants, retainers,  household,  her  children  and  their  chil- 
dren— all  but  Ch'eng  Chu-po,  her  youngest  son  and 
idol,  all  but  he  and  Ti-to-ti. 

The  others  were  afraid  of  her  in  her  bitterness,  but 
not  the  two.  Chii-po  hung  about  her,  and  pressed  her 
hands,  and  brought  her  a  flower  of  her  favorite  olean- 
der from  the  garden.  And  Ti-to-ti  crawled  from  his 
basket — where  he  had  been  licking  a  hurt  paw— curled 
up  on  her  robe's  hem,  and  laid  his  tiny  silk  head  on  her 
tiny  satin  shoe. 


CHAPTER  II 

TT  was  a  vast  domain  over  which  this  lady  of  Ch'eng 
-*•  ruled,  and  all  in  it — except  her  sons'  wives — 
worked  hard ;  and  Ch'eng  Yiin  worked  hardest  of  all. 
To  all  intents  it  was  a  kingdom,  and  she  ruled  it  a 
despot  and  supreme.  In  the  China  of  that  golden  day 
there  was  little  law  and  almost  nothing  of  legal  code, 
except  the  simple  straight  laws  of  principle  and  com- 
mon sense.  China  was  the  happy  land  of  a  sane  and 
contented  people. 

Every  field  was  fertile,  flowers  crowded  and  laughed 
from  every  nook  and  crack,  the  passion  flowers  climbed 
up  the  great  trunks  of  the  orange  trees,  and  the  purple 
globes  of  the  vines*  fruitage  hung  pendant  between  the 
yellow  orange  balls.  Bees  sucked  the  honey  of  the 
clover's  breath.  Peacocks  fattened  on  the  meadows  of 
scented  grass.  The  ivory-carvers  sang  as  they  worked. 
The  bannermen  laughed  and  jested  as  they  practiced 
hour  after  hour  to  make  their  wonderful  archery  more 
skillful.  Peasants  left  their  rice  to  play  at  chess.  The 
four  jewels  of  the  scholar — paper,  brushes,  inkslab,  ink 
— had  pride  of  place  in  every  gentle's  house.  The  gods 
were  docile,  and  the  people  prospered.  Every  month 
had  its  festival,  every  day  its  pleasant  duty  and  its 
fructive  toil.  The  looms  sang  their  silken  song,  and 
the  women  sang  at  their  spinning  wheels.  The  chil- 
dren played  leap-frog  and  blind  man's  buff  among  the 
bright  hibiscus  flowers,  filched  nectarines  from  their 
dripping  panniers  as  the  fruit-laden  coolies  passed  to 
the  kitchen  doors. 


8  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"Ask  us  a  riddle !  Ask  us  a  riddle !"  the  little  thieves 
clamored,  as  Ch'eng  Shao  came  suddenly  among  them, 
and  the  great  lady  laughed  and  said  to  them  slowly, 

"'Little  boy  red-jacket,  whither  away?' 
*To  the  house  with  the  ivory  portals  I  stray/ 
'Say,  will  you  come  back,  little  red-coat,  again?' 
*My  bones  will  come  back,  but  my  flesh  will  remain/  " 

She  said  it  for  them  thrice,  and  when  one  black-eyed 
urchin  cried,  "I  know,  honorable  mistress,  I  know !  A 
cherry!  A  cherry!"  and  all  the  other  youngsters 
caught  it  up,  and  pranced  about  her  madly,  screaming, 
"A  cherry,  lady,  'tis  a  cherry!"  she  clapped  her  hands, 
and  bade  the  servant  bring  the  little  monkey-things 
honey-cakes  and  cherries,  and  went  her  way  to  count 
the  new  baby  pigs  that  had  been  littered  in  the  night, 
and  to  test  the  quiet  and  the  temperature  in  the  silk- 
worm sheds. 

And  every  home  was  happy.  It  was  love  and  laugh- 
ter, flowers  and  hard  work  all  the  way  in  China  then — 
every  day  a  day  of  toil,  and  every  night  a  night  of 
zither  and  of  song. 

Her  coal  mines  were  wide  and  deep  and  very  rich. 
But  they  were  worked  so  far  from  her  house  and  her 
garden — and  from  the  precious  silkworms*  sheds— 
that  sight  nor  sound  nor  smut  of  them  ever  reached 
the  dwelling-place,  the  courtyards,  or  the  vineyards 
or  the  groves. 

In  the  patriarchy  of  Ch'eng  Yiin  the  incessant  labor- 
ing was  a  compulsion  of  her  will,  and  a  necessity  of  a 
place  at  once  so  teeming  and  so  intricately  crossed  and 
counter-crossed  with  the  industries  that  both  fed  and 
enriched  it.  And  of  all  those  industries  Ch'eng  Yiin 
knew  and  supervised  each  part.  She  knew  her  mul- 
berry trees  almost  to  a  leaf,  and  the  output  and  in- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  9 

crease  of  her  fields  almost  to  a  millet  seed.  She  could 
weave  better  than  the  master-weaver  of  her  hundred 
looms,  she  could  test  the  grades  of  tea  with  the  light 
touch  of  a  finger's  tip,  or  guess  the  tea  plantation's 
coming  yield  with  but  a  glance.  She  knew  always  what 
her  stewards  should  have  paid — that  and  no  more — 
for  all  the  thousand  things  her  larders  stored,  the 
grapes  from  Shansi  and  Shangtung,  the  pink  and  snow 
hams  from  Foochow,  the  lichees  from  Canton.  She 
spent  a  fortune  every  day,  but  nothing  was  wasted  or 
misused  in  all  that  vast,  scattered  place;  not  one  little 
grain  of  rice,  not  one  tiniest  blue  kingfisher's  feather, 
not  one  melon  seed.  Everything  was  used  to  the  best, 
and  every  industry  was  made  to  pay,  and  to  pay  to  its 
utmost.  The  very  by-products  of  the  makings  and 
tradings  of  the  place,  under  her  skillful  husbandry, 
yielded  harvest  of  gold.  In  the  pretty  mandarin  fash- 
ion she  spoke  of  all  the  common  people  who  were  her 
thrills,  as  "the  babies,"  and  if  she  ruled  them  hard,  and 
decided  for  them  more  than  many  mothers  do  for  their 
young,  she  ruled  them  well,  and  she  was  mother-good 
to  them.  And  they  loved  her  something  as  children 
do,  and  trusted  her  as  dogs  trust  the  human  masters  of 
their  love.  And  well  they  might.  Her  temper  was  a 
wasp,  her  tongue  a  lash,  but  she  was  greatly  bred,  and 
her  soul  was  fine.  She  gave  them  food  and  play  and 
happiness,  and  she  drove  them  to  every  jot  of  work 
that  she  deemed  good  for  them — and  her. 

She  drove  herself  hardest  of  all,  but  she  drove  all 
her  underlings  with  no  lenient  hand.  Her  daughters- 
in-law  had  no  set  tasks,  and  no  nominal  compelling, 
but  for  the  most  part  they  were  ceaselessly  busied  too 
with  their  constant  and  recurrent  mother-craft. 

And,  if  the  concubines  cost  much  to  buy  and  more 


lo  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

to  keep,  their  mistress  saw  to  it  that  they  were  useful 
too.  Sun-fo-So  was  skilled  in  simples,  U-chiao  deft 
with  her  needle.  Several  were  fair  musicians,  and  kept 
the  courtyard  amused  and  pleased.  Ping- Yang  (a 
wife)  supervised — under  Ch'eng  Yiin — the  dairy. 
Under  Ch*eng  Yiin  Ayuli  nursed  the  sick,  and  P'an- 
p'an  taught  the  babies — taught  them  to  kot'ow,  to  eat 
their  rice  fitly,  and  later  to  use  the  tally-board,  and 
write  without  spilling  the  smallest  drop  from  their 
ink-heavy  writing  brushes — for  P'an-p'an  was  clever, 
and  had  been  well  and  delicately  taught.  Still  another 
— skilled  as  so  many  Chinese  women  are,  in  mathemat- 
ics, kept  the  household  accounts,  another  those  of  the 
estate — both  strictly  supervised  by  Yiin  herself.  For 
no  multiplicity  of  affairs  seemed  to  overtax  her  inde- 
fatigability.  Even  in  China,  she  was  a  wonderful 
woman.  Wearing  no  paint — since  a  widow — but  gor- 
geously clad  always  and  heavily  jeweled,  she  ran  like 
a  girl  on  her  wee  feet,  almost  the  smallest  in  China, 
romped  when  in  the  mood  with  her  little  grandsons, 
and  outplayed  them  at  mora,  at  whipping-top  and  at 
"beggar-my-neighbor,*'  and  took  the  first  hand,  and 
detailed,  unflagging  direction,  at  every  industry  on  the 
great  teeming  estate. 

And  because  she  was  so  busy  her  rancor  passed — or 
at  least  the  ugly  outer  show  of  it — but  the  grief  stayed. 
Her  stubborn  heart  panted  for  a  granddaughter.  And 
no  other  wish  granted  or  dream  fulfilled  would  slake 
it. 

Two  things,  and  two  only,  were  paramount  in  the 
soul  of  Ch'eng  Yiin :  to  nurse  a  granddaughter  in  her 
arms,  and  to  conserve  and  serve  China.  China  was  her 
god,  patriotism  her  religion. 

This,  too,  was  a  woman  of  moods — but  in  them  all 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  ii 

she  watched,  weighed  and  ruled.  Some  days  she  ruled 
laughing  and  to  the  sound  of  the  lute,  and  her  servants 
ran  laughing  to  her,  and  laughing  away  to  obey,  and 
her  boys  hung  at  her  sleeve  laughing,  and  called  her 
by  her  pet  names,  and  the  wives  and  concubines  sang 
as  they  served.  Some  days  she  ruled  frowning,  wield- 
ing a  stick,  and  to  the  crash  of  cymbals,  the  bellow  of 
drums,  and  the  servitors  rushed  gravely  to  do  her  will, 
and  her  sons  and  her  grandsons  kot'owed  and  were 
silent,  and  the  wives  and  concubines  kept  out  of  her 
way.  But  always  she  ruled,  and  always  the  others 
obeyed.     And  every  year  she  grew  richer. 

The  summer  the  nettle-rash  nearly  maddened  her, 
prickling  every  inch  of  her  delicate  skin  with  torture, 
prickling  her  temper  to  ferocity,  she  journeyed  daily 
about  the  estate,  forcing  them  to  carry  her  in  her  litter. 
A  bee  stung  her;  she  swore  at  the  bee,  and  beat  at  a 
slave,  but  she  tasted  the  honey,  and  directed  its  storing. 
At  the  lime  kilns  she  suffered  an  agony,  but  she  suf- 
fered it  grimly,  and  ordered  and  reordered  the  work- 
men. And  at  the  sheds  of  the  silkworms  she  left  her 
litter,  and  moved  about  silent  and  placid  among  the 
half -naked  girls,  nodding  to  them  smiling  approval ;  for 
nothing  must  break  the  tranquillity  of  the  cool,  quiet 
houses  where  the  brooding  worms  spin  and  feed  and 
hatch,  watched  bytheir  faithful,  placid  girl  attendants. 

But  no  matter  what  she  was  doing,  or  how  seemingly 
absorbed  in  the  moment's  occupation  or  business,  al- 
ways her  heart  ached  for  the  girl  babe,  that  often  and 
often  was  coming  perhaps,  but  that  never  came,  except 
as  a  boy. 

But  she  loved  the  boys — all  of  them — the  boys  that 
she  bore,  and  the  boys  that  their  women  bore  them. 
And  they  found  her  their  merriest  playmate,  and,  as 


12  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

they  grew  towards  manhood,  their  firmest  friend.     She 
was  womanly. 

The  Httk  boys  that  were  handsomest  and  brightest, 
seeming  to  promise  most  to  their  own  future  and  to 
their  country,  often  ran  about  the  place  dressed  as  girls 
while  they  were  young — to  deceive  the  evil  spirits  who 
had  a  special  flair  for  boys,  but  rarely  trouble  to  carry, 
off  or  injure  a  mere  girl. 

And  they  worshiped  her,  her  sons  and  her  grand- 
sons, and  so  did  her  servants ;  and  even  the  wives  and 
the  concubines  liked  her.  But  it  was  men  things  that 
felt  her  thraldom  soonest,  surest,  deepest  and  longest. 
For  she  had  been  born  a  Shao,  and  the  women  of  that 
house  always  have  been  enslavers  of  men.  To  love 
and  serve  them  men  had  but  to  see  them.  Emperors 
had  craved  them,  and  been  denied,  and  one  a  great 
Manchu  noble  had  wed  in  spite  of  the  law,  and  held 
and  cherished  her  against  all  odds,  risking  his  life  and 
his  place.  He  had  been  condoned  at  the  end — it  was 
said  because  his  Emperor,  catching  a  glimpse  of  the 
girl,  had  envied  and  forgiven. 

But  no  other  Shao  woman  had  ever  given  herself  or 
been  given  to  a  Manchu,  nor  had  ever  one  of  the 
Ch'engs.  They  were  Chinese — and  they  kept  it  unde- 
filed  through  the  centuries — but  for  the  one  willful 
woman  of  long,  long  ago.  They  dwelt  with  the  Man- 
chus  who  had  conquered  them  and  been  conquered  by 
them — dwelt  with  them  in  harmony,  in  courtesy,  even 
in  liking ;  but  never  they  let  down  the  one  barrier.  Only 
the  one  woman — her  name  erased  from  their  archives, 
and  taboo — ever  had  wed  but  with  one  purely  Chinese. 
And  never  a  maiden  of  the  Shaos  or  of  the  Ch'engs 
had  entered  the  Imperial  harem.  Their  beauty  and 
their  charm  had  invited  it.     But  the  old  Manchu  law 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  13 

forbidding  even  the  Emperor  himself  to  seize  a  Chinese 
maiden  for  wife  or  for  concubine  had  stood  them  in 
good  stead.  And  to  be  born  a  Shao  girl — or  a  Ch'eng 
— was  to  become  the  wife  of  a  Chinese  man,  and  to 
bear  him  children  of  race-blood  unmixed. 

It  was  a  merciful  law  and  a  diplomatic  one,  that  old 
decree  of  the  Emperor — but  it  was  a  shrewd  one  too. 
Many  a  rebellion  might  have  been  hatched  in  the  ver- 
milion palace  itself,  and  have  overnm  and  destroyed 
the  kingdom,  through  the  still  machinations  of  some 
slip  of  a  Chinese  girl,  attached  to  her  own  people,  and 
enthroned  in  the  favor  of  the  foremost  Manchu — tap- 
ping state  secrets,  suborning  state  ministers,  bribing  the 
eunuchs. 

But  both  as  wife  and  as  widow  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
had  been  in  Pekin.  She  had  lived  at  the  Court  once 
or  twice,  and  had  life-long  friends  there — one  in  the 
throne-room  itself. 

For  this  was  a  very  great  lady,  the  tiny  glittering 
figure  with  the  oval  unpainted  face,  who  bent  over  the 
side  of  the  light  lacquered  boat,  fishing  for  trout,  and 
clapping  her  hands,  and  laughing  and  babbling,  when- 
ever she  caught  one. 

"Look !  Chii-po,  look !"  she  cried,  holding  out  on  her 
slim  bamboo  pole  her  slippery  prize ;  and  then  catching 
it  in  both  hands,  and  clasping  it,  all  wet  and  wriggling, 
to  her  bosom,  'The  darling!  What  a  mouthful  he'll 
make!" 

"Nay,  motherling,"  the  boy  cried  teasingly,  "it*s  not 
much  of  a  fish." 

"You  lie!" 

"Not  I,"  he  retorted  significantly.  "It's  not  so  long, 
or  so  heavy,  or  half  so  silvered  as  this  one  of  mine. 
Let's  measure!" 


14  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

He  made  to  take  her  last  catch,  to  compare  it  with 
the  one  that  he  boasted.  She  resisted,  screaming  shril- 
ly. They  struggled.  And  her  fish  wriggled  itself 
loose,  or  slipped  from  the  grasp  of  her  one  hand — she 
was  fighting  Chii-po  with  the  other — and  fell  with  a 
splash  back  into  the  lake.  The  spray  from  its  fall 
struck  Ch'eng  Yiin  in  the  eyes.  She  swayed  and 
slipped,  and  must  have  fallen  had  not  Chii-po  caught 
her  in  his  arms.  And  they  both  rocked  with  laughter, 
till  she  wiped  her  eyes  on  his  sleeve,  swayed  back  and 
forth,  laughing  and  scolding  each  other,  and  rocking 
the  boat  till  the  boatmen  had  all  their  work  to  keep  it 
afloat. 

The  women  and  children  in  all  the  attendant  boats, 
a  pretty  flower-hung,  silk-cushioned,  carved  fleet  of 
twenty,  caught  up  the  laughter,  and  echoed  it  shrilly. 
The  slave  girls  caught  up  their  tiny  instruments,  and 
laughing,  sang  to  them.  A  slave  boy  clashed  his  tom- 
tom, another  beat  his  bells. 

The  blue  kingfishers  on  the  almond  trees  that  fringed 
the  lake  snatched  up  the  music  and  the  fun  and 
drenched  the  air  with  the  sweetness  of  their  song.  A 
great  peacock,  perched  on  the  coping  of  the  old  stone 
bridge,  spread  his  indignant  tail,  and  screamed  a  croak- 
ing rebuke.  And  the  little  speckled  trout,  dived  deep, 
swam  silently  away. 


CHAPTER  III 

CH^ENG  CHU-PO  knelt  at  Ch'cng  Yiin's  feet. 
"Motherling/*  he  pleaded,  fondling  her  girdle, 
"not  yet.     It  is  too  soon." 

Yiin  frowned,  and  he  continued  more  ceremoniously. 

"O,  honorable  lady,  jadelike  and  august,  keep  your 
degraded  slave  with  thy  jasmine  self.'' 

"Fool,"  snapped  his  mother,  "who  speaks  of  sending 
thee  away?  Or  thinks  of  it?  I  do  not  propose  to  sell 
or  give  thee  to  adoption.  Dost  think  a  Qi'eng,  and  a 
Ch'eng  of  Shao  blood,"  she  added  proudly,  "will  go  to 
his  wife,  or  live  in  the  house  of  her  father?  Your 
bride  comes  to  us — ^though  she  were  the  daughter  of  an 
emperor,  a  descendant  of  the  Two  Holy  Sage  Ones, 
or  a  daughter  of  the  gods." 

"Yes — lady — and  mother,  mistress  and  queen,  thy 
miserable  slave  knows  that.  But  a  new  wife  takes  a 
son  from  his  mother,  comes  somewhat  between  their 
hearts  and  the  love  they  have  held,  especially  if  she  be 
fair  and  skilled  in  soft  ways." 

Ch'eng  Yiin  drew  in  a  breath  sharply.  "How  do 
you  know  that  ?"  she  said. 

"I  have  seen  my  brothers  wed.  And  you  have 
chosen  fair  maidens  for  their  brides." 

The  woman  sighed.  "Yes.  I  know.  The  mother 
loses  h6r  son  when  he  weds  happily — at  least  for  a 
time.  I  am  loath  to  part  with  thee  even  so  much. 
And  thou  knowest  it  well.  But  our  house  has  its 
claims.    We  should  have  obeyed  them  ere  now."    She 

15 


i6  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

laid  her  hand  on  his  head,  and  tears  came  in  her  sharp 
eyes.  "Listen,  Chii-po.  Of  all  I  have  borne,  in  thy 
own  generation,  and  in  that  of  my  grandsons,  thou  art 
dearest  to  me.  Thou  wert  our  babe  when  thy  most 
honorable  father  became  a  guest  on  high.  Thou  hast 
his  look,  and  his  way,  as  none  other  of  them  all  has. 
Partly  because  I  have  so  loved  thee,  boy,  I  have  kept 
thee  dangling  here  at  my  girdle,  selfish,  weak,  reluct- 
ant to  share  thee  with  a  wife,  reluctant  to  share  thee, 
my  babe,  even  with  a  babe  of  thine  own.  Thou  lovest 
me,  boy?'' 

"Mother!"  he  cried,  the  wet  in  his  eyes  welling  quick 
in  answer  to  hers,  "as  the  flowers  love  the  sun,  as  the 
night  loves  the  moon.  Thou  art  my  all.  Drive  me 
not  away." 

"Nay,  never  that,"  she  said  fiercely.  "But  only  to 
loosen  a  little  the  grip  of  thy  hand  on  my  girdle,  the 
grip  of  my  hand  on  thine  every  hour.  Another  should 
serve  thee  at  rice,  another  should  sing  thee  to  slumber, 
when  the  day  beats  hot  on  the  red  of  the  roses,  and  the 
birds  seek  the  leafage  that  is  thickest  and  coolest.  List- 
en. I  have  left  thee  unwedded  in  selfishness — but, 
too,  in  a  stem,  self-restraint.  Thou  knowest  how  I 
have  longed  for  a  daughter.  But  thou  knowest  not 
why.  In  old  age,  and  in  illness  a  woman  craves  the 
companionship  of  a  girl  she  has  nursed  on  her  breast, 
a  woman  younger  and  agile,  of  her  own  blood.  There 
are  days  when  the  needle  grows  heavy,  and  the  bright 
silks  grow  dull  to  the  woman  who  bends  to  her  em- 
broidery frame  with  no  daughters  about  her.  A 
woman's  sons'  wives  belong  to  her.  The  daughters  she 
has  borne  are  she — she  herself — skin  of  her  skin, 
touch  of  her  hand,  soul  of  her  soul." 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  17 

Chii^po  nodded.  He  understood.  It  was  rarely 
that  he  did  not  understand  Ch'eng  Yiin. 

*'But  no,"  she  said,  smiling  gravely,  "it  was  not  for 
that,  or  but  in  a  small  way  for  that,  that  I  have  so  be- 
sought the  gods,*  have  so  heaped  tribute  on  the  altar 
of  Kwang  Yin.  Still  less  was  it  to  break  an  old  curse 
— which  reads  well  in  a  tale,  and  does  for  the  babies 
to  believe — but  is  but  smoke  in  the  estimate  of  the  wise. 
Such  old  tales  it  is  well  to  tell  over  and  over.  It  is  ill 
to  let  them  die.  But  they  are  ill  to  believe.  Fable  and 
poetry  trim  life,  and  deck  the  fame  of  a  house.  But 
even  a  fool  would  not  attempt  to  hew  rock  with  them, 
or  solve  mathematical  profound  problems.  No  man 
comes  to  manhood's  best  development,  no  man  knows 
the  utmost  of  courage,  until  a  daughter  nestles  on  his 
knee.  And  for  that  I  have  prayed  to  Kwang  Yin. 
But  another  reason  has  been  beyond  all  sharpest  and 
greatest.  It  is  through  its  women — the  women,  not  of 
its  marriage,  but  the  women  of  its  blood — that  a  family 
gains  power,  augments  and  keeps  it.  The  daughter 
we  give  a  great  noble  in  marriage,  makes  him  as  a 
child  in  her  hands  and,  because  her  heart  clings  to  the 
home  and  the  blood  of  her  birth,  he  becomes  our  friend 
and  our  ally.  The  sons  she  bears,  carry  his  name, 
worship  his  ancestors.  They  eat  his  rice  when  their 
teeth  have  hardened  their  gums.  But  they  suck  our 
milk.  They  are  his,  but  too  they  are  ours,  even  though 
they  never  look  into  our  eyes,  or  sit  in  our  ko-tang. 
Our  daughters  leave  us — and  gain  us  ten  score  of  allies. 
When  we  lift  a  girl  into  her  flowery-chair,  and  send 
her  out  on  the  long  way  that  ends  at  her  bridegroom's 
door,  we  send  an  ambassador  out  across  China — an 
ambassador  who  makes  few  mistakes — whose  diplo- 
macy rarely  blunders  or  fails — and  never  betrays  it- 


i8  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

self.  For  one  woman  can  persuade  more  than  can  ten 
men.  The  gossips  and  the  babies  praise  the  Manchu, 
proclaim  him  generous,  self-denying  because  he  de- 
creed, and  has  kept  his  plighting,  that  all  Chinese  girls 
shall  be  inviolable  against  his  desire." 

"Yet,"  ventured  the  boy,  *Ve  have  conquered  the 
Manchu  far  more  truly  than  he  conquered  us." 

Ch'eng*  Yiin  nodded.  "Of  course,  my  own  frog- 
ling— every  race  that  has  conquered  our  armies — and 
these  races  have  been  many  from  long  before  the  day 
when  Genghis  Khan  led  his  Tartar  hordes  here  from 
the  Steppes  of  Russia — every  such  conquering  race 
has  in  turn  been  quietly  influenced  by  us  into  a  deeper 
subjection  than  it  had  inflicted  on  us.  That  is  one  of 
life's  greatest  laws.  Perhaps  its  richest  compensation. 
And  too — it  is  the  inalienable  heritage  of  China,  the 
birthright  of  the  Chinese  character,  to  subdue  and  con- 
vert all  that  brashly  break  into  her  influence.  But  for 
all  that  same  the  dominance  throned  within  the  pink 
palace  walls  at  Pekin  sleeps  safer,  sits  firmer,  because 
neither  wife  nor  concubine  of  Chinese  blood  sways  on 
her  golden  lilies  across  his  carpets,  to  bestir  and  fer- 
ment race  feud  and  Mongol  intrigue.  The  witcheries 
of  Chinese  women  might  have  hurled  him  from  his 
throne  even  whilst  he  bent  to  caress  her.  But  the  slow 
alchemy  of  Chinese  influence  has  but  soHdified  the 
throne  and  strengthened  his  tenure — Chinese  thought, 
Chinese  art,  Chinese  custom — the  great  fructive  cus- 
toms of  a  wonderful  race — have  but  refined,  enriched 
and  more  empowered  the  conquered  and  pupil." 

She  paused  and  studied  her  shoe  proudly  as  it  peeped 
from  under  her  wide  trouser,  a  red  jeweled  shoe^ 
no  larger  than  a  gigantic  almond  nut.  and  much  the 
same  shape. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  19 

Then  she  went  on — there  is  no  end  to  the  words  of 
a  Chinese  woman,  and  never  fatigue.  "The  Chinese 
can  rule  all  their  world — by  its  character  alone,  and  can 
keep  the  blood  in  its  veins  unashamed,  unimpured. 
Never  shall  the  bird  of  paradise  nuptial  with  dogs. 
But  enough  of  the  Manchu  and  of  things  from  our 
point.  Because  it  has  been  daughterless,  the  Ch'eng 
race  has  stood  alone,  unsupported  by  the  stay-ropes  of 
its  women's  alliances,  unprotected  by  the  outer  guards 
of  its  women's  devotion  and  influence.  A  man  can 
adopt  a  son  to  celebrate  his  obsequies,  to  worship  his 
wraith,  but  no  adoption  can  gain  him  a  daughter's  sub- 
tle service.  It  was  for  the  sake  of  your  father's  race, 
the  augmenting  of  his  prestige,  that  I  have  besought 
Kwang  Yin  to  put  girls  in  our  cradles.  It  was  for 
that  that  I  hastened  the  marriages  of  thy  brothers, 
w^edding  them  to  wives  from  daughter-full  families, 
and  have  filled  the  courtyards  with  concubines  till  the 
whole  place  has  tinkled  with  the  sound  of  their  stick- 
pins." 

"Alas !"  laughed  Chii-po. 

"Alas !  yes !"  Ch'eng  Yiin  echoed  grimly.  "And  why 
have  I  not  so  hastened  your  marriage — now  you  shall 
know.    It  was  not  my  selfishness  nor  my  weakness," 

"I  know  that,"  her  boy  interrupted  proudly,  fond- 
ling her  hand.  And  he  knew  right  well  that  neither 
selfishness  nor  weakness  had  part  in  Ch'eng  Yiin. 

"The  gods,"  she  said  gravely,  "would  be  interceded 
with  decorum — not  importuned  or  hurried.  It  has 
been  given  to  me  that  too  many  prayers  may  weary 
and  then  anger  a  god.  And  so  I  have  learned  to  wait 
and  be  patient." 

Chii-po  dropped  his  eyes  suddenly,  and  the  hand  on 
her  hand  trembled  a  little.     He  was  her  slave — he  so 


20  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

loved  her,  and  she  was  so  strong — almost  he  was  her 
dupe,  and  willingly  so,  but  no  drugging  of  fascination 
or  of  love  could  for  one  moment  delude  him  into  the 
faintest  behef  that  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  acquired 
patience. 

Perhaps  she  sensed  it.  For  she  added  abruptly, 
"But  now  the  time  has  come." 

"A  little  longer !"  he  caught  her  hand  and  pressed  his 
cheek  upon  its  rings. 

Yiin  laid  her  other  hand  on  his  head.  "Well  then," 
she  said  gently,  "how  long?" 

"A  year,"  he  pleaded. 

She  shook  her  head.  "Not  nearly  a  year,  my  Chii- 
po.     Be  more  reasonable." 

"Then,  at  least,  until  after  the  Feast  of  Lanterns." 

"Until  after  the  Feast  of  Lanterns,"  Yiin  conceded, 
and  her  voice  sounded  to  say  it  not  unwillingly. 

"And  we  will  stay  close  together,  every  hour  till 
then?  And  we  will  walk  and  talk  and  play, — just  you 
and  I — and  till  then  let  us  forget — forget  the  marriage 
that  must  come — I  like  it  not — and  the  woman  it  will 
bring." 

"And  we  will  stay  close  together,"  she  answered 
gravely.  "And  we  will  walk  and  talk  and  play,  just 
thou  and  L  But  when  the  marriage  comes  you  will 
like  it  well  enough — and  I  make  little  doubt  that  you 
will  like  the  woman  it  brings  you  better  than  I  shall. 
And  in  the  meantime  you  shall  forget  it.  I  shall 
remember  it.  A  man,"  she  added  almost  sadly,  as  she 
rose,  "rarely  remembers;  a  woman  never  forgets. 
Come,  we  will  walk.'* 


CHAPTER  IV 

THEY  left  the  room,  and  crossed  through  the  court- 
yard, past  the  devil-screen,  to  the  outer  door,  and 
into  the  outer  grounds.  Theoretically  Ch'eng  Shao  Ytin 
passed  all  her  hours  within  her  own  apartments  and  in 
the  "flowery"  courtyard,  as  a  Chinese  woman  of  high 
caste  should.  Actually  she  went  daily  here,  there  and 
everywhere  about  her  vast  domain,  her  journeyings 
limited  only  by  her  whim,  and  her  face  and  voice  as 
familiar  to  every  coolie  on  the  place  as  the  trees  and 
the  red  roofs  of  the  houses  were. 

At  first  the  house  had  been  built  about  two  court- 
yards, as  a  Chinese  home  should  be  built,  but  the  many 
marriages,  and  the  lush  influx  of  baby-life  had  first 
crammed  and  cramped  it,  and  then  burst  through  it 
quite;  and  that  many  of  her  children  should  not  be 
roofless,  Y.iin  had  caused  a  grove  of  additional  home 
quarters  to  jut  out  again  and  again  from  every  wall, 
and  from  them  others,  like  red-topped  mushrooms, 
quarters  leading  all  into  the  others,  strung  together  by 
doors  and  courtyards,  and  that  were  houses  in  them- 
selves except  in  name,  and  independent  homes  but  for 
the  vigorous  over-ruling  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  and  that 
in  their  irregular,  straggling,  sloping  red-roofed  mass 
spread  over  several  acres.  But  so  wide  were  the  gar- 
dens in  which  they  lay,  and  so  vast  the  fields  and  groves 
and  hilly  vineyards  and  quarries  circling  the  gardens 
about,  that  the  great  congerie  of  linked  buildings 
looked  snug  and  homelike. 

2J 


22  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

They  were  all  of  but  one  story.  In  Pekin  it  was 
against  the  law — and  in  China  law  is  obeyed — to  erect 
a  dwelling  of  more  than  one  story — because  Chinese 
ladies  spend  their  lives  within  home-walls,  and  depend 
upon  the  courtyards  of  the  "flowery'*  quarters  for  fresh 
air  and  sunshine.  And  so  jealous  is  Chinese  law  and 
Chinese  sentiment  of  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  wom- 
en that  even  an  Emperor  would  not  venture  to  evade 
the  old  custom  which  his  subjects  dare  not  disregard. 
In  this,  her  Ho-nan  stronghold,  the  woman  tottering 
through  a  wilderness  of  flowers,  leaning  on  her  son's 
arm  as  she  went,  was  supreme.  She  might,  and  she 
would,  have  built  her  home  up  to  any  height;  but  it 
never  had  occurred  to  her  to  heighten  it  by  a  foot  be- 
yond the  one  story  allowed  in  the  imperial  capital. 
She  approved  the  accredited  regulation.  And  what 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  approved  that  she  did  and  obeyed. 

All  Chinese  law  is  an  expression  of  justness,  and  is 
built  on  sanity.  Chinese  law  is  omnipotent.  Chinese 
laws  are  very  few. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  say  which  is  Chinese  law,  which 
Chinese  fashion;  they  are  so  one  in  source  and  aim, 
sprung  both  from  sentiment  and  tradition,  whose  only 
concern  is  to  preserve  and  augment  a  people's  health, 
happiness  and  peace.  Chinese  law  has  little  machinery, 
and  needs  but  scant  personnel.  Few  formal  adminis- 
trators of  law  are  needed  where  laws  are  few,  and  every 
law  administered  loyally  by  all,  because  sincerely  re- 
spected and  approved  by  all,  and  administered  by  cor- 
dial observance  from  the  coolie  in  the  wet  paddy  fields 
to  the  yellow-robed  Emperor. 

The  most  fantastic  custom  or  rite  in  China  has 
grown  from  some  beneficent  reason,  is  steeped  in  rea- 
sonableness.    And  the  Chinese  know  it.     They  take 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  23 

their  philosophies  gayly,  but  the  philosophies  are  sound 
and  shrewd. 

Of  all  made  things,  perhaps  Chinese  roofs  are  the 
most  picturesque.  The  sun  was  just  past  its  full  when 
the  woman  and  youth  strolled  together  through  the 
flowers  to  the  bamboo  groves  on  an  Eastern  hill.  And 
in  the  slipping  sun,  the  red-tiled,  sloping  roofs,  curved 
and  indented — the  hundred  roofs  of  the  home  of  the 
Ch'engs — glowed  ruby  warm. 

The  lovers,  the  woman  and  her  son — gayer  in  satin, 
silk  and  jewels  than  any  flower  in  all  that  flower-rad- 
iant place — planned  how  they'd  make  high  holiday  of 
every  day  left  them  before — before  the  Feast  of  Lan- 
terns. She  caught  her  youth  back  from  his,  and  prat- 
tled to  him  as  they  went.  .  Once  she  broke  from  him  to 
chase  a  butterfly,  and  clapped  her  hands,  applauding  it, 
when  it  escaped  and  disappeared  beyond  a  great  forest 
of  hollyhocks. 

They  passed  a  gardener  asleep  in  the  shade.  They 
passed  two  sweepers  throwing  dice.  They  passed  a 
mason  setting  a  wall  askew.  Ch'eng  Yiin  took  no 
heed— except  to  shrug  and  laugh.  Never  had  such  a 
thing  happened  with  her  before.  But  this  was  carnival 
time — the  play  time  of  Chii-po,  and  the  Suzerain  of 
every  fate  within  that  domain's  far-flung  boundary 
walls  would  give  no  thought  to  aught  but  mirth  and 
tenderness  while  he  was  at  her  side.  She  was  bidding 
her  boy  good-by,  and  she  would  bid  it,  brave  heart 
that  she  was,  with  laughter  and  with  song,  with  jest 
and  warm  red  wine. 


CHAPTER  V 

THAT  night  she  made  him  a  feast  and  shared  it. 
As  a  rule  she  ate  her  rice  alone,  keeping  her  state 
in  solitude,  as  Tze-Shi  kept  hers  in  Pekin.     But  now 
and  again  she  commanded  a  son,  or  a  favorite  daugh- 
ter-in-law to  her  table — and  Chii-po  oftenest  of  all. 

Since  he  was  a  man,  and  she  but  a  woman,  she  should 
have  served  him,  or — for  in  China  the  precedence  of 
motherhood  often  supersedes  the  precedence  of  man- 
hood— he  should  have  served  her.  But  Ch*eng  Shao 
Yiiin  had  never  served  any  one  in  her  life — not  father 
nor  husband ;  and  she  had  no  mind  that  Chii-po  should 
serve  her  to-night. 

They  ate  side  by  side.  And  for  the  first  time  Chii- 
po  tasted  monkeys*  lips  and  torpedo's  roe. 

There  are  eight  foods  sacred  to  the  Emperor.  Un- 
fortunately— for  her  conscience — Ch'eng  Yiin  was  in- 
ordinately fond  of  them  all.  For  loyalty's  sake  she 
never  let  even  the  servants  who  prepared  and  served 
them  see  her  touch  one  to  her  mouth.  In  priceless 
bowls  they  were  laid  on  a  side-table,  in  some  vicarious 
ceremonial,  or  to  be  ready  should  the  Son  of  Heaven 
unexpectedly  appear  and  be  a-hungered — and  at  the 
end  of  her  own  meal  they  were  miraculously  destroyed. 
When  the  servants  had  withdrawn,  she  swayed 
over  to  the  malachite  side-table,  and  swayed  back  to 
her  own,  carrying  the  forbidden  bowls — scarcely  per- 
turbed by  her  own  presumption,  (since  no  one  had  it 
for  example)  and  growing  less  so  with  each  succulent 
mouth  fuf. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  25 

But  to-night  she  shared  her  imperial  master's  delica- 
cies with  Chii-po,  while  the  song-girls  shrilled  through 
the  casements,  and  the  nightingale  sang  to  the  roses. 

And  when  they  had  eaten  and  drunk  from  their  tiny 
wine  cups,  and  finished  their  pipes^ — she  took  up  a  sam- 
sien  and  sang  to  Chii-po  while  he  lolled  on  the  cush- 
ioned sandal-wood  seat  at  her  side. 

And  when  they  were  tired  of  music,  or  she  though* 
he  was,  she  told  him  stories  of  his  race — the  endless 
.stories  of  every  great  Chinese  clan,  gushing  with  senti- 
ment, embroidered  with  poetry  and  fantasy,  big  with 
brave  deeds,  decently  darkened  here  and  there  with 
crime,  glittering  with  jade  and  amethysts,  tinkling  with 
laughter,  grim  and  glad  with  the  clash  of  arms — 
breathless  stories  of  danger  and  conquest,  whispered 
stories  of  exquisite  women  and  of  love.  Some  he  had 
heard  before,  some  were  new.  But  Chii-po  hung  upon 
them  all,  playing  with  her  girdle,  fingering  her  rings. 

Till  nearly  morning  she  kept  him  with  her,  and 
amused.  Long  after  the  household  slept  she  told  on 
and  on  the  tales  he  loved  to  hear — ^the  casement  thrown 
wide  to  the  sparkling,  scented  night. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  prompt  at  appointments,  punctual 
in  duty,  had  never  been  a  slavish  keeper  of  hours. 
Day  and  night  were  one  to  her.  And  for  much  she  liked 
the  night  hours  best.  She  worked  by  day,  directing 
and  prodding  the  many  industries  of  her  wide  estate, 
but  at  night  she  read,  and  thought,  resting  her  tireless 
limbs,  and  storing  up  strength  and  poise  from  the  still- 
ness and  the  dark  for  the  strenuous,  restless  day  with 
its  intricate  net-work  of  interests  and  activities.  All 
that  lay  to  her  hand  to  do,  this  little  Chinese  woman  did 
vigorously,  eagerly  and  well.  But  she  did  all  in  her 
own  way,  and  at  her  own  time.     She  bowed  to  no  un- 


26  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

derling's  convenience — and  all  were  her  underlings  here 
— and  certainly  to  no  time-table.  When  she  was  hun- 
gry she  ate.  When  she  was  thirsty  she  drank.  Out- 
side her  apartments  relays  of  wakeful  servants  squat- 
ted by  night  as  well  as  by  day,  ready  to  rush  to  her 
bidding  at  the  first  clap  of  her  hands.  In  the  middle 
of  the  night  her  stewards  felt  no  surprise  to  be  sum- 
moned to  a  saturnalia  of  farm  accounts  or  sericultural 
debate.  In  the  dead  and  middle  of  the  night  frequently 
elaborate  meals  were  cooked  for  her,  and  ceremoni- 
ously served.  A  clanging  of  an  outer  bell  roused  the 
boatman  from  sleep  to  man  her  skiff  for  a  drifting  on 
the  lake  to  an  accompaniment  of  many  musics,  or  that 
she  might  fish  by  moonlight.  And  that  at  midnight  thf> 
catch  was  small  was  neither  here  nor  there.  It  was  no^ 
to  catch  fish  the  woman  loved,  but  to  fish  for  them. 
She  loved  the  night,  and  to  put  into  it  all  the  exercises 
and  activities  that  she  best  liked.  Hours  were  for  her 
convenience,  her  servants,  and  not  she  theirs. 

The  instant  Chu-po's  laugh  came  a  little  slow,  his 
hand  on  her  robe  a  little  lax,  she  dismissed  him. 

When  he  had  gone  she  lit  her  reading  lamp,  an  an- 
tique, jeweled  treasure  fed  on  pungent,  perfumed  oil, 
sharp  as  vinegar,  sweet  as  attar,  and  drew  a  book  of 
poems  to  her  knee. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  was  too  skilled,  and  she  loved  Chii-po 
too  well,  to  chain  him  too  closely  to  her  girdle  in  these 
dear  days  of  the  last  trysting  of  their  closest  intimacy 
— the  trysting  whose  close  must  mark  some  renuncia- 
tion of  her  motherhood,  and  mark  his  childhood's 
close.  His  sex  had  thwarted  and  disappointed  her  be- 
yond all  her  previous  disappointments — for  when  the 
sweet  pains  of  his  coming  had  throbbed  their  message 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  27 

through  her  being  she  had  known  that  her  last  of  child- 
birth was  at  hand.  If  this  were  not  a  daughter,  no 
daughter  would  ever  come — to  fulfill  her  paramount 
ambition,  and  in  after  years  to  wear  her  gems  and  don 
her  robes.  But  she  had  loved  him  from  the  first  with 
more  than  the  sum  of  love  she  had  given  to  his  broth- 
ers, and  when  the  woman  had  put  him  to  her  breast, 
and  she  drew  her  fingers  across  the  down  on  his  tender 
head,  she  would  not  for  China  and  its  wealth,  not  for 
China  and  its  weal,  have  changed  him  for  any  girl. 
And  as  the  full  years  passed  he  had  been  her  one  per- 
fect companion,  her  perfect  joy,  and  her  most  unstinted 
pride. 

She  knew  him  too  well,  loved  him  too  much,  to  keep 
him  always  with  her  now.  And  when  his  young 
eye  roved  across  the  peony  beds  to  the  dim  outlines  of 
the  farther  hills,  she  drove  him  from  her  to  the  chase — 
or  bade  him  bring  her  from  the  distant  river's  bank 
some  flower  or  fern  that  grew  only  there. 

And  if  he  had  loved  the  freedom  of  his  roamings  be- 
fore, it  was  twice  a  pleasure  now.  So  much  it  was 
his,  the  freedom,  the  zest  of  it,  unwatched,  undictated, 
uncensored,  careless,  irresponsible,  that  it  seemed  his 
very  self,  the  ultimate  expression  of  independence  and 
self -suzerainty,  that  its  curtailment  or  abandonment 
seemed  not  a  remote  catastrophe,  but  sheer  impossibil- 
ity. He  went  where  he  would,  how  he  would  and  while 
he  would.  Sometimes  he  dashed  off  on  his  sure-foot- 
ed Arab,  all  the  bells  of  the  high,  carved  saddle  jing- 
ling a  roundelay  of  speed  and  spirits,  sometimes  he 
went  afoot,  unattended,  lingering  in  the  lanes,  bound- 
ing from  rock  to  rock  on  a  steep  hill-side,  eating  fruits 
he  tore  from  their  stems,  drinking  at  a  bubbling,  chat- 


28  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

tering  brook,  shouting  aloud  in  his  freedom  and  in  the 
splendor  of  his  youth,  gathering  flowers,  gloating  on 
their  loveliness,  and  singing  low  snatches  of  some  old 
love  tune  as  he  turned  toward  home. 

And  always  he  came  back  to  her  with  an  added  love. 
And  always  she  was  waiting  and  watching  for  him,  and 
welcomed  him  with  a  bowl  of  fragrant  wine  and  with 
some  new  contrivance  for  his  pleasuring :  a  prank 
planned  for  them  to  play,  an  old  book  found  to  read  to 
him,  a  robe  donned  for  him  that  he  had  never  seen  be- 
fore, a  priceless  robe  some  ancestress  had  worn  centu- 
ries ago,  a  troupe  of  strolling  players  summoned  by 
runners  from  the  nearest  great  city  to  enact  a  new  play 
in  her  theater — a  gilt  and  bamboo  edifice  spliced  up  by 
her  carpenters  in  a  day — or  to  reenact  for  him  some 
chief  favorite  of  his,  a  quail  fight  for  him  to  watch 
such  as  even  they  had  never  had  before,  or  a  vase  or 
bronze  new-bought,  or  disemboweled  from  some  old 
coffer — a  troupe  of  boys  from  Foo-Chow  to  walk  and 
dance  for  him  on  stilts,  playing  ball  and  juggling  as 
they  danced,  a  thousand  birds  of  every  throat  and  hue, 
released,  at  the  clapping  of  her  hands,  from  wicker 
prisons  in  the  tangled  grass,  to  take  their  eager  bril- 
liant flight  above  the  pink  almond  trees  up  into  the  sky 
— far — farther — dim — dimmer — out  of  sight. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"DUT  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  was  at  hand. 

-■^     Once  she  spoke  to  him  of  what  lay  hot  at  her 

heart,  and  cold  in  both  their  fears — but  only  once. 

*'Have  you  any  choice — any  wish — my  Chii-po?'* 
she  said. 

"As  to  the  girl?"  he  made  no  pretense  not  to  under- 
stand her;  it  was  not  their  way.  Chii-po  cheated  no 
one,  and  she  never  cheated  him. 

She  nodded. 

"Choice  ?     In  what  way  ?'* 

And  then  he  laughed  at  her.  "How  is  even  a  wish 
in  the  matter  possible  with  me?  I,  who  have  never 
seen  a  girl !" 

She  could  not  contradict  him  in  that.  The  peasant 
girls  in  their  fields  and  in  the  cocoon  sheds  counted  to 
neither  of  them.  And  to  him  the  slave  girls  in  his 
brothers'  harems  counted  for  less. 

The  mother  nodded.  "But  from  what  province, 
from  what  family?     With  what  traits?" 

"No,"  he  said  simply,  "why  should  I  care?'* 

His  mother  sighed.  She  knew  how  much  he  might 
care — afterwards;  care  and  regret,  if  her  choice  went 
awry. 

"Will  her  feet  be  small  as  yours?"  he  added,  how- 
ever. "I  like  small  feet — and  hands  like  yours — the 
rest  is  little.     But  the  hands  and  the  feet " 

"Your  bride's  golden  lilies  will  be  small  and  well 
squeezed,"  she  interrupted  severely.  "Small  as  mine 
will  be  hard  to  find — perhaps  impossible.     But  they 

29 


30  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

will  be  as  they  should,  and  her  hands  very  beautiful. 
I  promise  you  that/' 

Across  one  corner  of  the  domain  an  old,  old  river  lay 
like  a  broad  band  of  silver.  If  it  ran  to  the  sea,  it 
moved  v/ith  such  slow  dignity,  so  silent  and  so  calm, 
that  no  eye  could  catch  its  course,  and  no  one  make 
guess  in  which  direction  lay  its  source,  in  which  its 
passing  into  the  ocean's  wide  marriage  bed.  Sunshine 
and  moonlight  painted  and  jeweled  it,  but  rarely  rip- 
pled, and  the  fierce  storm  winds  that  blew  now  and  then 
from  the  North  far  beyond  the  Hwang  Ho  and  the  Fu- 
niu  Shan  failed  to  ruffle  its  proud  calm.  And  the  great 
pink-throated  cranes  that  came  and  mounted  on  the 
mossed  pebbles  at  its  bend  seemed  not  to  cut  with  the 
sharp  scissors  of  their  slender  pointed  beaks  the  im- 
perturbable smoothness  of  its  glass.  The  score  of 
other  waters  that  danced  and  foamed,  laughed  and  rip- 
pled noisily  through  the  wide-flung  acres  of  Ch'eng 
Yiin  probably  were  as  old  as  it,  but  they  seemed  babies, 
and  it  old  as  time.  And  perhaps  nothing  else  gains 
so  much  reality  from  its  seeming  as  does  age — bub- 
bling youth  and  quiet  age.  The  little  brooks  and  rills, 
with  their  churning  and  their  frothing  waterfalls, 
seemed  of  to-day,  lusty  but  very  young,  reborn  each  day 
in  ecstasy  and  glee — the  infants  of  each  sun,  the  ur- 
chins of  each  moon,  with  elves  and  water  sprites  for 
playmates,  and  sweet  banked  flowers  and  ferns  for 
swaddling  clothes.  The  river  seemed  veiy,  very  old 
because  it  was  so  motionless — so  self-sufficient  and  so 
self-possessed.  To  Chu-po  it  had  always  seemed  the 
oldest  thing  in  China,  and  the  wisest,  and  at  once  the 
most  indifferent  and  the  kindest.  Its  surface  never 
moved.  Its  depth  was  veiled  and  screened  by  its  thick 
calm. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  31 

When  the  lantern  feast  was  very  near — not  four 
"weeks  off — ^and  all  China  teemed  and  panted  with  ex- 
cited preparations  for  her  greatest  festival,  and  with 
all  the  clatter  of  its  New  Year  keeping,  Chii-po,  a  little 
wearied  of  the  incessant  movement  of  his  world — the 
cackle  and  the  din — wandered  away  to  the  river's  near- 
most  bank — ever  from  his  babyhood  a  favorite  haunt 
of  his. 

He  had  not  come  here  to  think.  It  was  his  wish  and 
his  mood  to  avoid  thought.  He  had  come  here  to  be 
alone.  He  was  fiercely  tired  of  people,  and  harassed 
by  the  thought  of  a  companionship  to  come,  apprehen- 
sive of  its  claims  and  of  its  rasp.  And  the  compan- 
ionship of  the  old  river,  that  he  had  loved  longer  than 
he  could  remember,  was  endurable  only  because  it  was 
so  aloof  and  so  still ;  saying  nothing,  irresponsive  and 
apart. 

Why  he  so  shrank  from  the  lot  which  was  the  honor 
of  every  Chinese,  and  the  signia  of  manhood,  he  could 
not  have  told.  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  chosen  maidens 
well  through  her  reign,  and  each  of  Chii-po's  brothers 
was  happy  and  comfortable  with  his  wife.  There  were 
no  bickerings  in  the  Kingdom  of  Ch'eng  Yiin — ex- 
cept when  she  chose  to  make  them.  And  Chii-po,  who 
had  had  the  run  of  the  flowery  quarters  far  more,  and 
years  longer,  than  Chinese  canons  indicated,  had  found 
his  sisters-in-law  pleasant  enough  folk  at  all  times, 
often  amusing,  if  rarely  restful,  and  sometimes  well 
worth  knowing.  But  he  was  younger  than  his  years 
by  nature;  one  of  those  whom  the  gods  love  and  keep 
young  till  death,  and,  from  the  over-mothering  of 
Gh'eng  Yiin,  young — a  little  babyish — in  a  manly  way. 
With  all  a  Chinese's  reverence  for  age  in  others,  he  was 
Strangely  ambitionless  of  age  and  the  things  of  age  for 


32  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

himself.  He  had  no  wish  to  wear  a  beard  or  to  be 
"nine  thousand  years  old" — only  an  Emperor  may  be 
called  older  than  that.  The  thought  of  the  causal  civil- 
ities of  marriage  embarrassed  him — to  its  more  inti- 
mate amenities  he  had  not  given  a  thought — and  he 
wondered  ruefully  whether  he'd  have  to  talk  to  the  girl 
his  mother  gave  him,  and,  if  he  did,  what  in  all  the 
range  of  words  should  he  find  to  say  to  her?  And 
would  she  mind  ? 

Probably  she'd  hate  it  even  more  than  he.  Poor 
little  girl!  The  new  thought  tinged  his  mind  with  a 
new  kindliness  towards  her — almost  his  heart  with  a 
tender  sense  of  comradeship.  It  was  the  first  feeling 
of  kindness  that  he  had  had  toward  his  unknown,  and, 
as  he  believed,  as  yet  unchosen  bride. 

Poor  little  girl ! 

What  was  that? 

Sounds  and  movement  came  from  beyond  the  wal- 
nut grove — ^two  drifts  of  each  moving  toward  each 
other,  and  bearing  down  on  him.  One  came  from  the 
east,  one  from  the  west.  There  were  twenty  ways  into 
the  estate — but  each  puncture  well  guarded  at  its  gate. 
The  pad,  pad  of  straw-shod  coolie  feet.  The  click  of 
palfreys'  feet.  The  ringing  of  horses*  bells.  Who 
was  coming?  He  could  and  would  avoid  them.  But 
first  he'd  look. 

Goat-nimble  Chii-po  left  the  bank,  and  climbed  the 
steep  side  of  a  rough  ravine.  Half  hidden  in  a  belt  of 
firs  on  the  low  hill's  crest — he  had  no  notion  to  be  seen 
and  perhaps  interrupted  of  his  solitude — he  paused 
and  looked,  then  stood  still  and  watched — a  sumptuous 
sight. 

Two  cavalcades  were  converging  a  few  rods  away. 

In  each  bannermen,  footmen,  horsemen  and  insignia* 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  33 

carriers  led  the  long  retinue  which  ended  behind  its 
master  and  personage  with  a  straggling  herd  of  ser- 
vants and  slaves,  so  many  that  only  a  Chinese  head 
could  count  them,  and  only  a  Chinese  purse  pay  or  feed 
them. 

There  was  nothing  to  distinguish  servants  from 
slaves.  Under  the  Manchu  rule,  the  old  system  of 
Government  slavery  had  long  disappeared — as  did  so 
much  of  national  ill — but  the  beneficent  slavery  of 
great  men's  personal  ownership  survived  and  throve. 
And  among  the  hundreds  of  sleek,  happy,  well-fed  re- 
tainers now  pouring  at  their  masters'  wake  into  the 
Ch'eng  domain,  there  was  doubtless  a  goodly  sum  of 
legal  slaves — happier  than  their  freemen  fellows,  be- 
cause more  permanently  attached  to  their  lord's  ser- 
vice, and  more  intimately  of  his  acquaintance  and  care, 
and  more  secure  of  both — many  of  them  bearing  his 
name,  all  sharing  in  his  pride  of  house  and  place. 

The  musicians  were  the  most  splendid  in  dress,  minc- 
ing consequentially  like  gay  human  tulips  along  the 
paths.  The  dwarf-tree-bearers  in  one  cavalcade,  and 
in  the  pther  the  cage-carriers,  moved  with  even  more 
strut  and  pride  of  gait  than  did  the  music-makers,  for 
nothing  else  in  all  those  twin  throngs  of  mandarin 
display  was  of  finer  value,  or  cherished  with  more  elab- 
orate solicitude,  than  the  tiny  dwarf  trees,  each  in  a 
little  tub  of  carved  ivory  or  gemmed  gold,  and  the  little 
singing  birds  in  jeweled  plumage  and  jeweled  cages 
of  gilded  bamboo  or  lacquer  pierced-and-cut-lace.  No 
man  carried  more  than  one  tiny,  jeweled  tree,  or  one 
tiny,  caged  bird.  And  behind  each  such  bearer  walked 
an  attendant  with  all  the  tree  or  bird  might  need 
while  journeying — special  food,  special  drink,  careful 
contrivances  for  warmth  and  freshened  air.     Chinese 


34         THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

birds  are  greatly  loved.  Chinese  dwarf -trees  are  hardy 
as  the  race  that  rears  and  cherishes  them,  but  like  that 
virile  race,  are  highly  strung,  and  the  trees  must  not 
be  buffeted  about,  or  moved  with  ruthless  carelessness 
from  place  to  place.  And  in  this  last  the  dwarf-trees 
are  less  persistent  of  life  and  character  than  the  humans 
of  the  Chinese  race. 

Doubtless  both  birds  and  priceless  trees  were  trib- 
utes of  compliment  to  the  Lady  of  Ch'eng — and 
doubtless  many  of  the  bamboo-corded  bales,  less  easily 
and  less  carefully  carried  in  the  long  processions'  rears, 
held  tribute  too,  to  be  laid  at  the  preposterously  small 
feet  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 

Kites  of  every  size  and  color,  so  like  the  bats  and 
birds  they  aped  that  from  a  greater  distance  Chii-po 
must  have  thought  them  the  living  things  they  pre- 
tended, were  carried  in  each  procession.  And  when  a 
light  wind  rose  the  aeolian  harps  and  the  tiny  bells  tailed 
on  some  of  them  made  soft  music  in  the  perfumed  air. 

Gong-bearers  headed  each  procession  and  each  was 
closed  by  an  indescribable  motley  crew  of  umbrellas, 
banner  carriers,  tall-hat  lictors,  title-bearers,  servants 
carrying  changes  of  raiment,  mounted  guards,  foot- 
guards,  regalia-bearers,  more  gongs,  fans,  bastinadoes, 
swords,  bludgeons,  soldiers,  incense  bearers,  execu- 
tioners, more  umbrellas,  bludgeons,  road-clearers  car- 
rying whips,  jesters  and  acrobats. 

The  coming  notables  seemed  of  equal  rank.  As  they 
met,  one  descended  from  his  green  chair,  the  other 
from  his  horse.  And  the  near-by  retainers  of  each 
ranged  themselves  at  the  sides  of  the  path,  standing 
stolid  and  incurious,  as  if  with  their  backs  to  walls. 

The  officials  greeted  each  other  with  elaborate  cere* 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  35 

mony — but  too,  Ch'eng  Chii-po  thought,  with  cx)rdial- 
ity. 

One  Qiii-po  knew  well,  had  often  seen;  the  man  who 
had  left  his  chair  to  do  his  friend  courtesy  and  stood 
blinking  short-sighted  eyes  in  the  strong  sunlight,  his 
spectacles  in  his  hand,  for  no  Chinese  could  be  so  un- 
couth as  to  wear  glasses  when  speaking  to  another. 
The  Mandarin  I — I  Kung  Moy — came  from  Pekin 
now  and  again  to  hold  long  and  earnest  conference  with 
the  lady  of  Ch'eng,  and  sometimes  Chii-po  had  been 
called  in  to  listen  to  their  talk.  And  always  I  brought 
Ch'eng  Yiin  dwarf-trees  to  enrich  the  "dwarf"  forest 
already  a  pride  of  China. 

Wherever,  whenever,  I  Kung  Moy  came  politics  was 
afoot.  He  was  in  every  sense  a  party  man,  and  of 
ceaseless  activities.  And  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  a 
great  politician — China  had  no  keener.  She  rarely 
left  her  own  domain,  but  almost  daily  her  runners 
passed  to  and  fro,  up  and  down  China  and  across,  by 
path  and  river,  carrying  messages  of  serious  political 
import,  messages  to  Pekin  and  Annam,  to  Manchuria 
and  Quelpart,  and  like  messages  in  return  to  her. 

She  and  I  were  of  one  mind  on  almost  every  aifair 
of  state,  and  that  this  was  so,  explained  why  he  had 
not  been  stopped  at  the  gate.  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was 
always  at  home  to  I  Kung  Moy,  and  no  custodian  at 
her  gates  but  knew  to  kot'ow  him  instant  admission. 
Chii-po  was  sure  that  his  mother  had  not  been  expect- 
ing the  mandarin,  or  any  other  guest,  but  I  had  come 
unexpectedly  once  or  twice  before,  and  could  never 
come  unwelcome. 

Yiin  would  receive  him  as  a  Chinese  lady  should, 
when  such  reception  was  necessary,  with  a  heavy  cur* 


36          THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

tain  hanging  between  them.  And  so  they  would  talk 
and  argue,  and  presently,  when  the  talk  grew  hot,  she 
would  jerk  the  curtain  aside,  beckon  him  to  a  nearer 
seat,  and  they  would  speak  low — in  whisper  now  and 
then — for  hours,  as  man  to  man.  And  when  he  passed 
from  her  presence,  her  sons  would  be  called  to  do  him 
hospitalities.  But  his  visit  and  his  confidences  invari- 
ably were  to  Ch*eng  Shao  Yun. 

But  for  the  presence  of  the  other  mandarin  Chii-po 
was  at  a  loss  to  account.  Him  Ch'eng  Chii-po  had 
never  seen  before.  But  the  stranger  must  have  had 
some  password  sufficient  for  the  eastern  gate. 

So  determined  were  the  two  men  each  to  give  the 
other  precedence  that  they  seemed  fated  to  remain 
where  they  were,  bowing  and  gravely  gesticulating  for- 
ever, inextricably  stuck  in  a  bog  of  politeness.  But  at 
last  the  stranger  with  a  gesture  drew  the  other's  atten- 
tion to  a  closely  shuttered  palanquin  withdrawn  a  little 
from  his  own  retinue  resting  on  the  ground  now,  and 
guarded  by  armed  eunuchs.  At  that  I  Kung  Moy 
bowed  quite  to  the  ground,  averted  his  eyes  from  the 
deposited  litter,  and  after  many  more  obeisances, 
backed  up  the  path  that  led  to  the  homestead  of  the 
Ch'engs.    And  Ts  retinue  followed  I. 

The  stranger  turned  as  if  some  one  had  called  to  him 
from  the  palanquin,  and  went  towards  it  eagerly.  All 
the  others — except  the  eunuch  guard — turned  their 
backs  to  it — and  moved  a  little  farther  off. 

The  litter's  curtains  parted;  and  a  figure  stepped  out 
on  to  the  path,  a  slender  figure  that  as  it  walked  remind- 
ed Ch'eng  of  some  one — he  could  not  remember  whom. 
It  was  a  woman,  her  garments  told  him  that,  tissues 
and  brocades  of  jade  green,  dark  blue  embroideries 
flower-shaped,  trousers  of  orange  silk,  a  jade-green  and 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  37 

sliver  veil  quite  hiding  her  face.  It  was  a  woman  of 
rank.  Her  bearing  told  that.  She  was  young,  her 
carriage  told  him,  and  happy  and  well.  And  some- 
where he  had  seen  her  walk  before.  He  was  sure  of 
that;  some  one  he  knew  well  walked  as  she  walked. 
Odd! 

The  golden-lilied  women  have  as  many  individuali- 
ties of  gait  as  big-footed  women  have.  This  girl^ 
Chii-po  was  sure  it  was  a  girl — scarcely  swayed  as  she 
left  the  path  and  climbed  the  sun-drenched  hillock  be- 
yond. Almost  she  scarcely  seemed  to  move,  but  she 
did  move — rather  rapidly.  And  the  old  man  moved 
smiling  at  her  side. 

It  did  not  occur  to  Ch^eng  Chii-po  that  this  might 
be  his  bride — his  dreaded  wife. 

Nothing  occurred  to  him  except  a  dull  throbbing 
sense  that  he  no  longer  wished  to  be  alone. 

But  even  had  he  been  still  lord  of  his  wits,  no  such 
thought  could  have  occurred  to  him.  His  mother  had 
promised  him  no  move  towards  his  marriage  until  after 
the  Feast  of  Lanterns — and  though  China  fell,  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin's  promise  held. 

He  had  seen  a  girl. 

And  he  no  longer  wished  to  be  alone. 

A  girl  veiled  and  shrouded.  A  girl  in  some  dis- 
tance, two  hill  slopes  and  the  width  of  a  narrow  mead- 
ow between,  but  still  a  girl,  living,  breathing,  moving 
— and  a  girl  of  his  own  patrician  caste — patrician  as 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  herself — or  Ye-Ho-Na-I^h — the 
empress-wife. 

And  now  Chii-po  saw  that  there  were  other,  cur- 
tained chairs  behind  hers — plainer  and  less  obsequious- 
ly guarded — her  attendant  women  doubtless. 

The  low  apex  reached,  the  girl  stood  still  and  looked 


38  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

about  her  through  her  veil.  Then  her  hands  shot  out 
from  the  jade-green  draperies.  They  were  very  tiny 
hands,  but  their  shape  and  the  loveHness — he  knew  that 
it  was  there — ^were  hidden  by  a  crush  of  rings.  With 
an  imperious,  girlish  gesture  she  Hfted  her  arms,  and 
the  loose  sleeves  fell  back,  leaving  them  and  their  ex- 
quisite loveliness  all  naked  in  the  rose  rays  of  the  after- 
noon's waning  sun.  Ch'eng  Chii-po  caught  his  breath ; 
it  stabbed  him  in  his  throat.  He  had  never  seen  his 
mother's  arms.  He  had  not  seen  the  arms  of  any  of 
his  brothers'  wives — or,  if  he  had,  he  had  not  noticed 
them.  He  had  not  dreamed  that  flesh  could  be  so  fair, 
or  pull  one  so.  Why  did  not  that  old  man  fall  at  her 
feet? 

The  girl  lifted  her  veil — she  flung  it  back. 

It  was  a  girl! 

All  the  gods,  yes ;  it  was  a  girl. 

She  wore  no  paint  on  this  journeying.  Her  delicate 
face  was  amber-cream  and  faint  oleander  pink.  Her 
little  curved  mouth  was  redder  than  the  rubies  on  her 
hand.  The  little  teeth  that  just  showed  in  dazzling 
purity  when  she  smiled  up  at  the  tasseled  blossoms  of 
the  flowering  tree  were  whiter  than  Omi's  snow.  The 
narrow  brows  w^ere  painted  on  her  peachy  amber  skin 
with  a  sharp  velvet  brush — a  daring  stroke  of  black 
across  the  soft  cream.  Trembling  jewels  flashed  and 
dangled  from  the  black  gloss  of  her  hair.  Her  eyes, 
sparkled  in  the  light,  but  were  soft  as  some  young  doe's 
and  deep-pansy-dark  within  their  lashes'  lace-soft 
fringe. 

The  boy  trembled  as  he  watched.  Was  she  real? 
Could  anything  so  beautiful  be  real? 

She  reached  up  and  pulled  a  flower  from  the  tree  i 
that  seemed  to  bend  down  to  her  as  if  proud  and  glad 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  39 

to  be  torn  by  such  delicate  fingers — rifled  of  its  loveli- 
ness by  such  greater  loveliness. 

But  it  was  her  arms  that  moved  him  most — round 
girlish  arms,  chinked  with  dimples,  molded  exquisite- 
ly, slender,  soft  and  virile.  He  had  often  noticed  how 
pretty  the  roly-poly  babies'  arms  were  in  the  court- 
yards of  his  brothers'  wives.  And  he  had  thought  dim- 
ples were  the  lovely  livery  of  babyhood.  Did  girls 
have  dimples  too?  And,  if  one  touched  them,  would 
they  feel  as  the  baby  dimples  did  ? 

He  flushed. 

She  drew  the  blossom  she  had  filched  across  her  face, 
and  for  a  moment  held  it  there.  Then,  as  she  tucked 
it  in  her  robe,  at  something  the  man  beside  her  said,  she 
laughed  aloud,  and  the  music  of  her  little  voice  tinkled 
across  to  Ch'eng  Chu-po  and  smote  him  to  the  soul — 
sent  the  quick,  startled  blood  racing  through  his  fright- 
ened veins,  and  surging  up  his  throat.  Again  he  asked 
the  gods,  was  it  real?  Could  such  music  be  real? 
Could  such  sweetness  sound  in  common  air? 

The  old  man  held  out  his  hand — and  she  put  her 
palm  in  his,  flung  the  veil  back  across  her  face — and 
they  retraced  their  way.  Tenderly  the  man  stowed 
her,  as  something  very  precious,  in  her  chair.  The 
bearers  lifted  it  shoulder  high — and  they  moved 
slowly  toward  Ch'eng's  home — the  mandarin  riding 
close  beside  her  chair — for  his  jacket  told  him  that, 
the  button  on  his  cap,  the  cornelian  beads  hanging 
from  his  neck,  and  the  caparisons  of  his  steed. 

The  boy — ^but  now  a  man — watched  them  until  they 
were  out  of  sight — and  then  he  stimibled  back  to  the 
calm  old  river's  edge — as  best  he  could — not  as  he  had 
come,  but  gropingly  by  the  longer,  twisting,  circuitous 
path — ^an  easy,  even,  gentle  foot-way  that  sloped  down 


40  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

imperceptibly — its  gradient  was  so  gradual — ^but 
Ch'eng  Chu-po,  the  goat- footed,  stumbled  as  he  went, 
slipped,  and  once  he  almost  fell. 

He  slid  down  beside  the  river,  his  face  crushed  into 
the  ferns  at  its  brink — and  lay  as  still  as  it.  But  pres- 
ently he  groaned  aloud — it  was  a  birth  cry — ^groaned 
because  he  was  alone. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  stars  were  out  when  he  went  slowly  home 
Hours  had  passed. 

They  came  hurrying  to  meet  him,  and  brought  him 
rice.     He  thrust  it  away — and  waved  them  back. 

When  he  had  bathed  and  dressed,  he  went  to  his 
mother's  room,  the  little  carved  and  scented  room 
where  she  kept  her  privacy,  and  went  in  without  ask- 
ing or  leave. 

Ah  Song  was  crouched  outside  the  threshold.  She 
knew  his  step.  She  knew  the  importance  and  the  se- 
crecy that  were  going  on  within.  But  she  made  no 
motion  or  word  to  stay  him,  and  as  he  passed  within, 
a  shrewd,  prophetic  smile  flitted  across  her  sightless 
face. 

The  sole  concern  of  Chinese  diplomacy  in  those  days 
was — and  up  till  then  had  been — foreign  affairs.  So 
perfect  was  Chinese  patriarchy,  so  beautifully  it 
worked,  that  there  was  little  chance  of  internal  broil, 
and  none  of  any  so  serious  as  to  merit  or  need  the 
cognizance  of  Pekin — no  excuse  for  * 'party"  clash  or 
mouthings.  Happy  the  country  that  has  no  politics. 
And  China  had  none  until  priest  and  adventurer  came 
bringing  her  the  Cross  and  gun-boat.  And  even  then, 
when  the  diplomatic  hydra  reared  its  gory  head  it 
found  no  chink  or  rent  to  stick  its  claws  in,  and  so  into 
Chinese  home  affairs.  But  already  a  miasmic  shadow 
crept  into  China  from  the  sea,  threatening  her  witt» 

4» 


42  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

disruption  and  disease — the  shadow  of  newer,  rawer 
civihzations ;  civilizations  less  civilized,  less  humane, 
less  tested,  less  honest  and  less  dignified.  The  slow, 
rough  influx  of  foreign  interests  was  creeping  slowly 
upon  the  Chinese  rivers,  past  the  forts.  As  yet  it 
had  but  fastened  on  a  treaty-port  or  two,  and  cankered 
slyly  at  Shanghai  and  Hankow,  Hongkong  and  Tien- 
tsin, at  Foochow  and  at  its  tiny  stronghold  of  Shamien. 
But  the  plague  was  in  the  air,  and  threatened  China 
to  her  core.  And  already  a  devoted  band  of  Chi- 
nese men — and  women — w^atching  had  taken  alarm; 
men  trained  in  observation  and  quick  in  thinking — 
serious,  sober  men,  unmovable  in  their  belief  that  to 
alter  China  were  to  poison  and  to  maim.  A  resolute, 
resourceful  band  with  whom  to  think  was  to  act. 

Chinese  politics  was  bom  on  the  day  that  Hamel 
landed  at  Quelpart.  And  it  had  grown  apace.  And 
from  it  had  formed  such  political  "parties"  as  China 
knew  or  Chinese  contentment  brooked:  the  Anti-for- 
eigners Party  and  the  Indifferents — one  hating  and  at- 
tacking all  foreighers  and  foreign  influence — the  other 
ignoring  both. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin's  father  had  been  absorbed  before 
her — as  his  father  before  him — in  politics,  an  anti-for- 
eign agitation  that  was  as  much  a  patriotism  as  pol- 
itics, and  that  same  politics — with  the  self -same  one 
aim — had  been  from  before  her  early  marriage  the 
obsession  of  her  soul,  the  secret  but  most  strenuous 
and  vital  industry  of  her  life. 

To  drive  the  foreign  villains  out— out  and  back  to 
whence  they  came,  affrighted  and  cured  of  any  de- 
sire or  power  to  return — that  was  the  great  aim  of 
her  life,  and  she  worked  at  it  and  for  it  ceaselessly 
with  all  her  imperious  might  and  main. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  43 

But  still  the  missionaries  and  the  traders  came, 
dnd  in  their  wake  the  credentialed  envoys  so  uncouth 
and  ill-born  that  they  did  not  know  how  to  behave 
at  a  court,  or  how  to  kot'ow  in  the  presence  of  a  liege. 

To  drive  the  foreign  vermin  out,  and  to  be  rid  of 
it  forever,  was  the  fierce  and  tender  ambition  of  her 
being — and  of  her  judgment. 

And  it  was  of  that  that  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  and  I 
Kung  Moy  talked  and  planned  as  they  sat  together  in 
her  carved  and  scented  room,  the  red  curtain  of  her 
seclusion  flung  wide  aside,  sex  forgotten,  etiquette 
kicked  contemptuously  away. 

They  were  conventionals,  full  of  prejudice,  the  man 
and  the  woman — she  even  more  than  he — filled  with  a 
burning  hatred  of  all  foreigners,  an  unreasoning  love 
of  the  past  and  of  old  established  ways,  a  venomous 
loathing  of  new,  untrod  paths,  and  of  the  human  sign- 
posts of  those  alien  paths,  the  priests,  the  merchants, 
travelers,  sailors,  envoys  from  the  inferior  scum-lands 
of  unknown  and  undesired  peoples. 

But  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  their  self- 
opinionated  point  of  view: 

There  is  little  insanity  in  China.  There  was  none 
until  we  came.  She  never  borrowed  a  yen  until  we 
induced  her  to — and  she  has  always  paid  her  debts 
scrupulously.  The  Chinese  have  been  the  making  of 
every  Christian  colony  in  the  eastern  seas.  A  race 
without  deformities,  self-keeping  and  self-kept,  living 
in  comfort  and  content,  ambitious  for  happiness  and 
the  sweet  things  of  life,  well-ordered,  spending  hap- 
pily, saving  sanely  and  gladly,  revering  books,  unaf- 
fectedly worshiping  nature,  loyal  and  obedient,  hold- 
ing womanhood  as  high  as  it  has  ever  been  held  any- 
where,  holding  old  age  and  childhood  higher,   and 


44  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

cherishing  them  more  nobly  than  ever  has  any  other 
race,  kept  ever-young  by  its  universal  bubbling  sense 
of  humor,  greatly  endowed  by  high  ideals  to  which  it 
hourly  matched  its  daily  life,  and  strong  and  straight 
from  a  truer,  stricter  sense  of  justice  than  any  other 
race  has  ever  reached,  family  rancor  unknown,  nepo- 
tism a  fineness  and  a  cult,  but  never  a  self-seeking  or 
a  vanity,  the  Chinese  had  little  need  of  Potsdam, 
Whitechapel  or  Washington,  and  have  reaped  what 
advantage  from  European  intrusion?  Perhaps  not 
one! 

Usually  at  their  many  conferences  it  was  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin  who  talked,  I  Kung  Moy  who  listened, 
Ch'eng  Yiin  who  instigated,  suggested  and  elaborated. 
This  little  woman,  who  had  left  her  own  estate  but 
four  times  in  twenty  years,  who  for  all  corporal  contact 
with  the  world  beyond  her  gates,  lived  for  the  most 
as  closely  cloistered  as  any  nun  of  Carmel,  was  the 
fire-brand  of  China's  foreign  policy,  and  its  strongest 
dynamic  force.  And  she  had  never  seen  a  European 
or  looked  into  their  history  or  their  creeds  of  life  and 
conduct. 

But  to-day  it  was  the  mandarin  who  talked,  while 
Ch'eng  Yun  listened  and  watched  with  flashing  eyes, 
and  gathering  brow,  picking  her  fan  to  bits,  tap-tap- 
ping the  floor  with  her  scrap  of  jeweled  shoe. 

Until  now,  I  Kung  Moy  had  come  to  ask  advice ;  to 
analyze  and  weigh  it — and  then,  almost  always,  to 
follow  it. 

To-day  he  had  come  from  Pekin  to  give  advice  and 
to  press  it. 

A  spoilt,  tempestuous  woman,  life-used  to  rule  and 
to  decide — ^her  veriest  whim  the  edict  of  her  little 
world — ^yet  she  was  too  big  to  resent  being  advised 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  45 

by  one  whom  she  so  respected  and  admired — so  liked. 
A  tyrant,  without  hesitation  or  scruple,  she  knew  that 
give-and-take  was  the  solvent  and  lubricant  of  life, 
and  constantly  she  used  it  so.  It  was  not  his  advising, 
but  the  advice  itself  that  he  gave  that  galled  and  revolt- 
ed, and  wreaked  her  vengeance  on  the  ivory  and  tissue 
of  her  fan — galled  and  infuriated  her  none  the  less  be- 
cause as  he  drove  each  unwelcome  point  home,  she  saw 
it  clearly  and  recognized  its  merit.  Her  gorge  rose 
and  sickened — her  judgment  weighed  and  approved. 
For  such  was  her  clarity  and  balance  that  when  infu- 
riated most  she  could  think  calmly,  decide  justly  and 
coldly.  To  no  delinquent  coolie  in  her  lime  kilns  could 
Ch'eng  Shao  Y.iin  show  cruder  tyranny  than  she  could 
at  need  show  herself — and  at  need  did. 

I  Kung  Moy  had  come  to  urge  a  change  of  tactics  on 
the  part  of  the  ring  leaders  of  the  anti-foreigners  pol- 
icy. And  hearing  him  Ch'eng  Yiin  stiffened  and 
fumed,  loathed  and  approved. 

He  had  come  to  ask  her  to  send  Ch'eng  Chii-po  to 
Europe — not  for  a  year,  or  in  the  open  service  of  their 
liege — ^that  would  have  been  hideous  enough — and  such 
debasing  work  was  for  Manchus,  if  it  must  be  done — 
she  could  not  admit  the  necessity — but  to  send  her  son, 
her  youngest,  best-loved  son  to  England  unobtrusively, 
to  go  to  school  with  English  boys — to  live  among  them 
for  a  term  of  years — to  mingk  with  them  in  such  inti- 
macy as  he  could  achieve,  and  of  his  seeking — for  a 
long  term  of  years — to  eat  their  food — to  eat  with 
them — if  they  would  let  him — to  assimilate  their  ways, 
to  become,  at  least  for  a  time,  as  nearly  like  them  as 
he  could. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  sickened  at  the  thought. 

To  solve  a  problem  it  is  first  necessary  to  understand 


46  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

it — so  ran  his  argument.  The  evil  of  foreign  invasion 
was  grovi^ing  day  by  day.  Whether  it  could  be  over- 
come by  force — and,  if  not  by  force,  by  what — it  was 
impossible  to  say  until  a  more  intelligent  understand- 
ing was  reached  of  just  what  these  foreigners  were, 
what  their  aim — their  methods,  their  ways  and  depth 
of  thought.  *To  circumvent  them,  we  must  know 
them."  To  defeat  them  by  force  might  prove  impossi- 
ble. Probably  it  would.  Chinese  military  power  was 
too  scattered,  too  antiquated — and  military  prestige 
was,  among  the  Chinese,  too  low.  Whatever  these 
English  were  or  were  not — it  was  the  English  he  chiefly 
feared.  They  were  the  persistent  race — they  were 
mighty  warriors.  Of  so  much  he  was  convinced.  The 
Chinese  were  not  warriors.  They  had  been,  of  course, 
and  they  would  be  again.  He  did  not  forget  the  Prince 
of  Han,  Ta'so  Ta'so,  Kublai  Khan,  Ch'ai  Shao,  Tsung- 
ping,  Wu  Sankwei  or  any  warrior  out  of  all  the  long 
warrior  line  of  her  illustrious  ancestry — or  of  his  less 
valiant  own.  But  now  China  was  out  of  tune  for  war, 
and  naked  of  equipment.  Whether  this  could  be  re- 
trieved in  time,  he  doubted.  If  not,  the  foreigners  must 
be  defeated  in  other  ways — circumvented,  or  their 
fangs  drawn.  Neither  of  these  things  could  they  hope 
to  do  until  they  knew  them.  And  to  know  men  you 
must  live  among  them.  The  best  blood,  the  best  young 
brains  in  China  must  be  banished,  for  a  time,  sent  to 
Europe,  steeped  and  veneered  in  European  ways. 

Ch'eng  slashed  her  knee  angrily  with  her  girdle.  But 
she  listened — and  questioned  him  reasonably  enough. 

"At  closer  range,  in  their  native  land,  the  English 
might  even  be  less  detestable.  The  lads  put  forth  to 
exile  and  to  school  might  not  find  it  too  unendurable." 

Ch'eng  Yiin  shrugged  wearily  with  a  quiet  uplift  o£ 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  47 

shoulder  that  said  more  than  any  mere  bitterness  of 
words. 

Already  a  start  had  been  made.  He  was  sending 
his  own  grandson  to  study  in  the  home  of  an  English 
priest — ^the  mandarin  eyed  Ch'eng  Yiin  anxiously. 
But  she  smiled  a  little  indifferently.  She  had  no  fear 
of  Chu-po's  apostasy,  and,  as  for  the  contamination, 
it  was  all  contamination.  That  Chii-po  might  have  to 
listen  to  English  prayers,  enter  English  Joss  houses, 
was  not  worth  a  frown.  To  her  mind  religions  were 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  religions.  She  thought  a 
man  as  justified  in  changing  his  god  and  his  temple  as 
in  changing  a  coat,  when  it  convenienced  him.  It 
sounds  a  lax  attitude  for  a  woman,  but  it  was  charac- 
teristically Chinese.  She  worshiped  her  gods  punctili- 
ously, but  she  judged  them  shrewdly.  She  paid  them 
well — as  she  did  her  servants — but  she  expected  them 
to  do  their  part.  She  had  thrashed  a  too  dilatory  god 
once,  and  she  might  do  so  again.  I  Kung  Moy  was  a 
native  of  southern  China.  He  took  his  religion  less 
casually. 

He  hurried  on,  relieved.  He  was  sending  I  Kow 
to  school  with  a  learned  man,  and  later,  when  he  knew 
the  tongue  and  could  pass  the  examination,  to  a  place 
called  Ox-ford. 

"It  is  terrible!  I  shall  suffer — torture,"  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin  said  slowly — interrupting  him  at  last.  "But 
since  it  is  needed,  I  will  not  grudge.  For  China — no 
sacrifice  is  too  great  for  China." 

"Lady,*'  the  old  man  began,  "Chuang  Tzu  told  his 
disciple " 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  burst  into  the  room,  and  flung  him- 
self at  his  mother's  feet — clasping  her  shoe  in  two  eager 
hands. 


48  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Ch*eng  Shao  Yun  motioned  with  her  shattered  fan 
towards  the  mandarin. 

But  Ch'eng  Chu-po  spared  no  heed  to  I  Kung  Moy. 

"Mother,"  he  cried,  *1  have  seen  a  girl!" 

"The  place  is  full  of  girls,"  she  said  coldly.  "There 
are  a  hundred  in  the  north  silkworm  shed.'*  She  un- 
derstood him  perfectly  and  instantly.  But  she  had  no 
mind  that  I  Kung  Moy  also  should.  "The  place  is  full 
of  girl  things,"  she  repeated  with  a  tiny  shrug. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  rose  impatiently,  stood  before  her 
straight  and  strong.  His  face  was  drawn  and  moved. 
But  it  glowed.  And  his  eyes  leapt  into  hers — imperi- 
ous now  as  he  rose. 

"I  have  seen  a  girl,"  he  told  her  again — proudly — 
"a  lady  girl." 

I  Kung  Moy  rose  from  his  chair,  passed  quietly  from 
the  room,  and  left  them  alone :  the  mother  and  the  boy 
that  she  knew  that  she  had  lost 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SELFISHLY— of  course— Ch'eng  Yun  had  been 
content  that  Chii-po  should  regard  marriage  with 
reluctance.  The  boy  was  very  dear  to  her,  and  he  was 
all  she  had — all  that  was  quite  her  own.  To  her  older 
sons  she  was  more  than  their  children  or  their  wives. 
Every  Chinese  mother  is  that.  No  younger  woman, 
no  child  that  he  has  begotten,  can  oust  a  Chinese  mother 
from  the  first  place  in  the  heart  of  the  man  that  she 
has  borne.  That  is  the  great  security  in  every  Chinese 
woman's  life.  No  wonder  that  they  long  for  sons. 
Let  her  but  bear  a  son,  and  she  is  forever  supreme  with 
one,  A  Chinese  father's  influence  is  enormous,  his  au- 
thority unquestioned  and  autocratic,  but  a  mother's  are 
much  more.  Each  son  that  Yiin  had  borne  was  filial, 
and  had  remained  so  always.  But  the  six  elder  she 
shared  now  with  wives  and  children,  with  friends  and 
quick  interests  of  their  own.  But  until  this  hour  Chii- 
po — always,  and  always  to  be,  the  dearest  of  her  sons 
— had  been  all  hers.  As  a  little  child  he  had  never  had 
a  toy  he  would  not  push  away  at  her  approach.  He 
had  a  hunter's  blood.  But  as  a  boy  never  he  went 
hawking,  but  he  looked  back  at  her  as  he  went.  A 
word  from  her  would  call  him  back — and  gladly  back — 
the  hawk  forgotten  and  dismissed.  He  had  liked  the 
books  that  she  had  bid  him  like.  He  had  seen  pictures 
and  porcelains  with  her  eyes — and  the  very  flowers 
that  grew  beside  their  paths,  the  wonderful  panorama 
of  the  Chinese  outer  world.     He  had  thought  her 

49 


so  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

thoughts,  breathed  with  her  breath.  The  pulsing  of 
her  heart  had  been  his.  And  all  the  love-light  in  his 
eyes  had  been  hers — his  unsoiled  young  passion  hers. 
It  was  gone. 

And  in  one  hour  she  was  called  upon  to  sacrifice  him 
to  an  absence  that  tore  her  to  contemplate,  an  absence 
of  long  wearying  years  in  an  environment  she  abhorred 
and  feared,  called  upon  to  yield  Chii-po  to  that,  to  read 
in  his  altered  face,  his  crisper  voice,  that  she  had  been 
struck  from  her  foremost  place,  thrust  beyond  a  bar- 
rier— sent  into  the  outer  cold. 

The  gods  forbid,  and  all  her  womanliness  forbade, 
that  she  should  wish  him  unhappiness,  or  in  the  mar- 
riage she  decreed  less  than  content.  She  would  see  to 
it  that  he  was  content,  satisfied  with  his  wife,  shielded 
in  quiet  and  in  peace  by  a  quiet,  docile  girl — a  wife 
sheM  choose  so  well  that  no  scratching  of  his  ease  could 
come.  But  she  had  wished  the  gift  to  be  from  her — 
all  that  blessed,  all  that  stirred  him,  from  her;  as  much 
her  sole  giving  as  her  milk  had  been. 

Fate  had  stolen  a  dastardly  march  on  her. 

Not  that  Ting  Tzu — she  knew  whom  he  must  have 
seen,  though  he  did  not — could  hold  him  from  her  long ; 
his  mother  would  be  first  and  warmest  with  Chii-po 
when  the  marriage  glamor  had  passed — if  she  let  it 
come  to  that. 

But  he  had  begged  her  to  hold  her  hand  until  the 
Feast  of  Lanterns  had  come  and  gone;  and  she  had 
been  well  pleased  to  have  hirn  beg,  well  pleased  to 
keep  her  dreams  with  his,  to  match  his  will  with  hers ; 
and  she  had  thought  to  keep  him  all  her  own,  all  for  her 
loving,  all  loving  of  her,  until  the  Lanterns  had  swung 
and  blazed,  and  burned  out. 

Ah  well — what  was,  was. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  51 

"Sit,"  she  said  gently,  "and  tell  me." 

"Yes,  ril  try,"  he  said  eagerly. 

It  had  been  the  habit  of  his  fearless  lifetime  to  an- 
swer her  always  readily,  frankly  and  without  embar- 
rassment. Not  so  to-day.  The  words  halted,  and  when 
they  lagging  came,  came  stupidly. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  did  not  help  him  out. 

She  had  always  helped  him  before  when  any 
intricate  telling  had  seemed  to  baffle  his  younger 
grasp  of  fact  and  use  of  words.  All  confidence 
between  them  till  now  had  been  mere  dialogue  and 
gossip  interchanged,  friendliest  conference,  rather 
than  soliloquy,  recital  or  confession.  When  he  had 
knelt  beside  her  as  a  boy  to  tell  her  of  his  first  offense 
— the  ruin  of  a  priceless  dwarf  oak-tree,  a  century  old 
and  less  than  six  inches  high,  against  which  his  ball 
had  dashed,  he  had  played  with  her  fan  as  he  spoke,  and 
she  had  heard  him  with  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

And— "Well,  what  of  it?''  she  had  said.  "A  sweep- 
er will  sweep  it  up.  One  priceless  tree  will  not  be 
missed  from  the  thousanded  forest  of  the  Ch'engs." 

And  he  had  nodded  happily,  and  begged  some  treat 
for  the  morrow.  And  they  had  gone  together  laugh- 
ing to  their  rice. 

Not  so  to-day.  Ch'eng  Chii-po  did  not  touch  any 
garment  of  hers,  or  she  of  his.  She  heard  him  silently 
— that  was  ominous — and  watched  him  grimly  through 
half-shut,  brooding  eyes. 

He  told  it  lamely,  but  told  it  all.  Her  lips  curled  a 
little  at  his  description  of  the  girl.  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
had  seen  many  girls. 

When  he  had  done,  the  woman  said  dryly,  "How  do 
you  know  that  she  is  one  of  us  ?" 


52  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Ch*eng  Chu-po  laughed.  It  was  answer  enough — 
the  proud  quality  of  that  laugh. 

"Did  she  see  you?"  Yiin  asked  him  sharply. 

"No,"  he  said,  "no  one  saw  me."  The  woman's  face 
cleared  a  little. 

"No  one  must  know  but  you  and  me." 

"Of  course,"  the  boy  rephed. 

Ch'eng  Yun  sat  deep  in  rapid  thought.  The  girl 
was  damaged — in  that  a  marriageable  man  had  looked 
upon  her  unveiled  face.  But  the  girl  herself  was  inno- 
cent of  the  catastrophe.  And  the  damage  was  slight, 
even  in  Ch'eng  Shao's  exigent  judgment.  Such 
chance  preencounters  were  not  unknown  in  Chinese 
life.  And  in  Chinese  romances  they  were  a  common- 
place— the  pivot  of  half  the  novels  written  from  Lo 
Kuan-Chung  and  Shih  Nai-an  to  Wang  Shih  Ch'eng 
— from  P'u  Sungling  till  to-day. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  came  nearer,  and  knelt  down  again 
beside  her. 

"Mother!  You  will  give  her  to  me?  I  was  bom 
for  her." 

Ch'eng  Yiin  rose  angrily.  So!  She  had  borne  her 
man-child  for  an  unknown  girl  chit!  Indeed!  She 
paced  the  room  hotly.  But  she  controlled  herself,  and 
said  presently,  speaking  dryly  from  the  casement  side, 
looking  at  him  again,  not  too  kindly,  "How  ?  We  do 
not  know  even  who  she  is." 

"I  do  not,"  Chii-po  retorted  quietly.  "But  they 
came  here." 

"Oh!"  Yiin  conceded  grudgingly.  "Then  it  must 
have  been  Ting  Lo  that  you  saw." 

"The  mandarin  Ting?" 

His  mother  nodded.  "They  brought  me  word  that 
he  was  here.     I  did  not  expect  him.     But  I  was  willing 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  53 

that  he  should  visit  Ch'eng  Ping-yang,  and  sent  your 
brother  word  to  welcome  him  and  give  him  tendence, 
and  entrance  to  Ch'eng  Ping-yang." 

So — it  was  the  father  of  his  eldest  brother's  wife  that 
he  had  seen — the  old  man  on  the  bedizened  palfrey. 

"He  was  welcome  to  welcome/'  Ch'eng  Yun  went  on. 
"But  I  did  not  know  that  he  had  brought  a  woman  in 
his  train !" 

"He  seemed  more  like  in  hers." 

The  mother  made  an  impatient  gesture  with  her 
hands. 

"Chut!"  she  said. 

"And  the  lady  ?"  he  asked,     "Tell  me  her  name." 

"I  do  not  know,"  she  said  sullenly.  But  in  her  heart 
she  knew. 

"The  daughter,"  he  began,  "is " 

"Daughter!"  his  mother  scoffed.  "More  probably  a 
new  young  wife!" 

*'No,"  Ch'eng  Chii-po  said,  "she  is  no  wife.  It  was 
father  and  maid  I  saw." 

"So  ho !  precocity!  You  are  very  shrewd.  His  wife, 
I  say!"  It  was  a  jealous  lie.  "Old  men  are  fools." 
That  was  not  a  Chinese  theory.  But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
was  always  independent  in  her  words,  and  sometimes 
in  her  thoughts.     And  she  was  angry  with  the  gods. 

But  Ch'eng  Chu-po  shook  his  head.  She  could  not 
frighten  him  so.  And  nothing  could  frighten  him 
to-day. 

Then  he  went  towards  her  where  she  stood  by  the 
open  casement,  and  held  out  his  hands,  his  face  quiver- 
ing with  tenderness — and,  too,  with  understanding. 
For  a  moment  she  kept  him  at  bay.  Then  she  smiled — 
a  little — and  took  his  face  in  her  hands. 


S4  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"My  little  boy !"  She  whispered  it.  And  her  eyes 
filled  with  tears. 

"My  mother!"     His  eyes  brimmed  too. 

"You  will  always  love  me,  Chii-po?"  It  was  the 
old  prayer  of  universal  motherhood.  It  choked  her  as 
she  spoke. 

"Always,"  he  said  stoutly. 

He  linked  her  arm  in  his,  and  they  leaned  together 
looking  out  at  the  stars. 

"The  night  is  very  still,  Chii-po!  ....     And  how 

sweet  our  garden  smells Our  country  is  very 

beautiful,  my  son." 

They  held  their  tryst  a  little  so — and  it  was  reconcil- 
iation too:  his  atonement,  her  conceding — her  relin- 
quishment. 

"Wait,"  she  told  him  presently.  "You  must  wait, 
Chii-po." 

"But  not  long!" 

She  smiled.  But  she  neither  promised  nor  refused. 
And  she  sent  him  from  her  then,  and  forbade  him  to 
come  again  until  she  sent. 

In  all  his  eighteen  years  Ch'eng  Chu-po  had  always 
gone  to  his  sleeping  mat  at  his  mother's  bidding.  So 
complete  had  been  her  dominance  of  him  that  almost 
invariably  he  had  not  only  lain  down,  but  had  actually 
slept  when  she  told  him  to. 

To-night  he  did  not  even  go  in  the  direction  of  his 
apartments.  He  passed  out  into  the  night,  paced  the 
garden  paths  from  bed  to  bed,  from  lake  to  Httle  water- 
fall, beyond  the  lotus  pond  on  the  terrace — telling  his 
story  to  the  drowsy  flowers  and  to  the  night. 

This  was  his  betrothal  night.  In  his  heart  he  vowed 
it  so. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  55 

A  serving  woman  passed  near  him  going  to  the 
house.  Cbii-po  knew  her  for  an  attendant  of  Ping- 
yang,  his  eldest  brother's  wife.  And  he  ran  after  her 
and  called  her  to  him.  She  came  readily  enough — she 
had  nothing  to  hide  or  fear.  Her  mistress  had  sent  her 
on  her  late  errand. 

"You  have  visitors  in  your  courtyard?"  Ch'eng 
Chii-po  began. 

"Yes,  honorable  lord." 

"Your  honorable  lady's  honorable  father — ^and — ^her 
honorable  sister." 

"Before  evening  rice  they  came,  thrice  honorable 
sir." 

"Can  you  tell  me  the  most  honorable  maiden's 
name?" 

Nan  Tung  shot  him  a  shrewd  glance.  But  she  an- 
swered in  a  moment  in  a  steady  voice — ^her  eyes  sub- 
serviently cast  down. 

"Ting  Tzu,  my  honorable  lord,"  she  said,  "Ting 
Tzu." 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  turned  and  walked  away — no  longer 
knowing  that  the  serving  woman  was  there — or  lived. 
And  Nan  Tung  scuttled  off,  laughing  softly,  to  the 
house. 

"Ting  Tzii,"  Ch'eng  Chii-po  breathed  it  twice. 

"Ting  Tzu,"  he  told  the  moon.  And  then  he  told 
the  little  flowers.  He  told  the  tiny  twisted  trees  in  the 
forest  of  dwarf  oaks,  and  the  passion  flowers.  He  told 
the  lotus  cups  sleeping  fragrant  on  the  burnished  bosom 
of  the  lake.     And  his  heart  was  beating  very  fast. 

Far  into  the  night  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  sat  where  he 
had  left  her — gazing  broodingly  into  space. 


j6  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

When  she  had  gone  into  her  sleeping  room,  disrobed, 
and  lain  down  on  her  mat,  Ah  Song,  lying,  as  was  her 
service,  just  outside  her  mistress's  door,  heard  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin  sobbing  piteously — ^hard,  bitter,  racking 
sobs.  Ah  Song  had  not  heard  Ch'eng  Yiin  sob  before 
since  the  night  Ch'eng  Yiin's  lord  had  died. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CH'ENG  PING-YANG  leaned  giggKng  against 
the  sundial  in  her  own  courtyard  and  Nan  Tung 
squatted  giggling  at  her  feet. 

"Get  up,"  Ping-yang  said,  pushing  the  maid  with  her 
shoe,  "and  go  now.  Tell  him  to  come  at  once — that  I 
bid  him  haste — that  Ch'eng  Ko  is  crying  for  him,  and 
will  not  be  comforted." 

Nan  Tung  jerked  herself  up  with  alacrity.  "Oh, 
he'll  make  haste,"  she  cried,  as  she  ran. 

"And  so  must  I,"  Ping-yang  said  turning  to  the 
house. 

The  wife  of  Ch'eng  Hsu  was  the  mischief-maker  o^ 
the  place.  But  her  practical  jokes  were  harmless, 
friendly  even,  as  a  rule,  and  she  was  more  liked  than 
disliked  by  them  all.  A  plump  little  creature  with 
wicked  eyes  and  nimble  wits,  she  had  considerable 
strength  of  will,  well-cloaked  by  a  careless  manner,  and 
an  ever  ready  laugh.  Her  will  and  her  mother-in-law's 
never  clashed.  Their  lives  ran  on  lines  that  rarely  met 
and  never  crossed ;  and  Yiin,  somewhat  underestimating 
the  other's  mentality,  as  intellectual  women  so  often  do 
that  of  those  whose  mental  tastes  differ  from  their  own, 
little  thought  how  often  Ping-yang  took  her  own  way, 
or  how  persistently  she  pursued  it.  Still  less  did  the 
dowager  suspect  how  much  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  influ- 
enced not  only  her  husband,  somewhat  phlegmatic  and 
easily  led,  but  all  the  courtyard  lives,  and  many  of  the 
retinue  without.     Ch'eng  Yiin  thought  Ping-yang  the 

57 


58  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

least  interesting  of  all  her  daughters-in-law,  but  liked 
her  for  being  a  contented,  sunny  little  thing,  lazy  at 
her  needle,  but  a  capital  nurse,  skilled  at  the  zither,  a 
devoted  mother,  and,  best  of  all,  a  peace-maker  in  that 
crowded  place — a  little  dull — but,  some  of  us  must  be 
dull.  It  was  a  blemish,  but  not  a  crime.  And  Yiin 
thanked  the  gods  that  in  the  matter  of  wives,  Ch'eng 
Hsu  was  so  easily  satisfied.  It  would  have  humiliated 
her  to  have  had  a  marriage  she  had  negotiated  turn  out 
unpleasantly. 

Ch^eng  Ping-yang  was  far  from  dull.  But  she  was 
essentially  a  woman's  woman.  She  cared  little  for  men 
— which  was  perhaps  as  well ;  for  with  her  kitten-purr- 
ing ways,  her  skill  at  making  menus,  and  her  gluttony 
for  fun,  and  expertness  in  getting  her  own  way,  she 
might  have  brought  domestic  water  to  the  boil,  and  her 
husband  to  some  annoyance,  if  nothing  worse,  had  she 
had  a  mind  for  coquetry. 

For  women's  women  Ch'eng  Yiin  had  little  flair. 
She  herself  was  a  man's  woman — ^the  friend  and  liker 
of  men — and  from  her  birth  men  had  been  within  her 
thrall.  Virtuous  always,  living,  until  the  limited  eman- 
cipation of  her  widowhood,  hidden  within  the  court- 
yard and  the  "flowery"  quarters  of  her  home,  yet  she 
had  been  loved  by  many  men.  Her  father  had  been  her 
serf.  Her  brothers  had  adored  her.  Her  sons,  only 
less  than  her  husband  had  been,  were  all  her  lovers. 
There  was  not  a  man — from  the  poorest  coolie — on  the 
place  that  had  not  some  feeling  of  affection  for  her. 
They  liked  to  see  her  come — even  though  she  came  to 
berate  and  tyrannize — and  the  bigger  men  that  came  to 
see  her  from  Pekin  and  from  Soul  and  Nanking,  came 
eageriy — and  more  than  one  made  excuses  to  come. 
She  had  the  qualities  that  lure  men,  and  the  qualities 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  59 

that  hold  them  too:  a  rarer  gift.  She  had  much 
beauty,  sparkle,  a  quick  wit,  and  that  indescribable 
greatest  quality  of  all:  Charm — the  quality  that  lasts 
longest,  and  survives  most — lasts  through  the  disfigure- 
ments of  age  and  pain  and  poverty,  lasts  till  death — 
lasts  and  persists  as  only  one  other  quality  does,  the 
quality  of  high  breeding. 

It  is  the  woman's  woman  that  is  a  matchmaker.  The 
man's  woman  rarely  is.  If  men  care  quickly  for  her, 
she  as  quickly  cares  for  men.  And  she  has  no  special 
delight  in  any  man's  absorption  in  any  woman  other 
than  herself. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  had  married  her  sons  from  duty,  and 
being  her  duty  she  had  done  it  well.  But  she  had  done 
it  somewhat  coldly.  And  now  that  the  time  had  come 
— and  almost  passed — for  the  marriage  of  Ch'eng  Chii- 
po,  in  her  heart  she  had  disliked  it  more  than  he. 

Ch'eng  Ping-yang  was  match-maker  to  her  curled 
and  shielded  fingernails.  She  had  ached  and  itched  for 
years  to  make  a  match — and  curtailed  as  the  opportu- 
nities of  a  guarded,  patrician  Chinese  woman,  locked 
within  her  manless  courtyard,  are,  she  had  encompassed 
it  now  and  then.  Several  marriages  between  the  re- 
tainers on  the  estate  had  been  made  by  her.  And  at 
least  two  of  her  brothers-in-law  had  fallen  deeply  in 
love — after  marriage — with  their  wives,  under  the  di- 
rect impulsion  of  her  machinations.  But  she  had 
longed  with  all  her  merry  soul  to  be  the  dea  ex  machina 
of  a  true  romance — a  love  affair  of  quality.  And  now 
she  thought  she  saw  her  way.  No  wonder  that  she 
bubbled  happily  as  she  ran  off — and  the  very  pearls 
hanging  from  her  hair  glowed  and  clattered  merrily 
and  were  glad. 

When  Ting  Ping-yang  had  left  her  early  home  for 


6o  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

the  long  journey  in  her  flowery  chair  she  had  felt  one 
keen  grief,  the  deepest  sorrow  of  her  life,  and  through 
all  her  placid,  contented  married  life  it  had  lived  on  in 
her  jolly  little  heart,  an  active  gnawing  sorrow  still. 
The  leaving  of  a  baby  sister  had  wrung  her  heart. 

And  now  that  sister,  a  slender,  soft-eyed  girl  with 
amber  rose-petal  hands,  who  had  just  reached  the 
marriage  years,  had  come  with  their  father  to  visit 
her. 

Ting  Tzu  had  not  seen  Ch*eng  Chii-po  the  day  be- 
fore, but  Sun  Fuh,  one  of  her  waiting  women,  had — 
and  had  gossiped  of  it  to  Nan  Tung,  wondering  who 
the  slender  young  lordling  was,  all  dressed  in  gold- 
wrought  satin  and  brocade,  but  with  a  hunter's  pointed 
face,  who  had  stood  and  gazed  and  gazed  with  hungry 
eyes  on  the  unveiled  features  of  Ting  Tzu.  And  Nan 
Tung — knowing  well  enough  who  it  must  have  been, 
had  regossiped  it  all  to  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  when  she 
had  tied  her  hair,  and  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  had  chuckled 
and  hatched  a  plan,  and  had  given  Nan  Tung  a  tinseled 
scarf  on  which  Tung  had  often  thrown  a  lustful  eye. 

How  good  the  gods !  She  must  try  to  remember  to 
burn  them  an  hundred  extra  joss  sticks.  She  really 
must,  the  dear,  good  gods!  Her  heart  had  sung  to 
them  yesterday  when  her  father,  in  answer  to  her 
imploring  of  years,  had  brought  to  her  Ting  Tzu. 
That  surprise  had  suffused  her  with  happiness.  But 
now !  now  she  saw  a  way  to  secure  Tzu's  return  again, 
and  always  stay.  O,  gods!  O,  gods!  That  very 
night  for  evening  rice,  she  would  make  for  their  father 
a  compote  of  apricots  such  as  he  loved  best. 

"Ch'eng  Ko,"  she  called,  as  she  ran  through  her 
rooms,  "Where  are  you,  my  fat  frogling?  I  want  you, 
Ch'eng  Ko!" 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  6il 

When  Nan  Tung  gave  her  message  to  Ch'eng  Chii-po 
he  followed  her,  as  she  had  foreseen,  readily  enough — 
and  without  surprise.  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  often  sent 
for  him.  They  were  special  friends.  And  when  spoilt 
Ch'eng  Ko  was  ill  or  very  bad,  nothing  else  could  heal 
or  reform  him  so  surely  as  a  visit  from  his  playmate 
and  uncle,  Ch'eng  Chii-po.  Ch'eng  Chii-po  came  with 
Nan  Tung  at  once,  and  no  less  willingly  because  the 
summons  had  come  from  the  sister  of  Ting  Tzii. 

When  Nan  Tung  brought  Chii-po  into  the  courtyard, 
and  left  him  there,  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  was  waiting  im- 
patiently just  inside  her  own  door-way,  Ch'eng  Ko  in 
her  arms.  When  she  saw  Chii-po  she  set  the  baby 
sharply  down  on  his  yellow  feet,  and  as  she  pushed  him 
through  the  open  doorway  she  gave  the  sturdy  plump- 
ness below  his  spine  a  sounding  spank.  It  did  not  hurt 
him  unendurably,  but  it  offended  and  outraged  him  in- 
tensely. And  the  angry  baby  ran  bleating  to  Chii-po 
— whfch  was  just  what  his  mother  had  intended  him 
to  do. 

Chii-po  caught  up  and  cuddled  him,  and  Ping-yang 
dashed  back  into  the  house. 

Ping-yang  was  almost  crying  when  she  burst  into  the 
room  where  her  young  sister  sat  sorting  skeins  of  silk. 

"Go — go  find  it  for  me,  Tzu,  go  quickly.  Ch'eng 
Hsu  will  kill  me,  if  he  learns  I've  lost  it !" 

Ting  Tzii  rose  slowly.  Naturally  she  had  not  seen 
much  of  the  brother-in-law,  and  was  supposed  not  to 
have  seen  him  at  all.  But  the  gossip  of  the  flowery 
quarters  is  detailed  and  shrewd.  The  idea  of  harmless 
Ch'eng  Hsu  killing  a  fly  was  absurd,  let  alone  his 
slaughter  of  the  wife  that  under  his  mother  ruled  him. 

"Go  where?  Lost  what?"  the  girl  said  lazily,  more 
amused  than  interested. 


62  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"The  little  dragon  of  jade  he  gave  me  when  Ch'eng 
Ko  was  born,  and  swore  me  always  to  wear,  but  never 
to  lose.  Go,  girl,  go  and  find  it  quickly,  or  I  shall  go 
mad.'*  And  Ping-yang  sank  down  on  her  heels  in  a 
frenzy  of  weeping  that  seemed  to  indicate  prompt  ful- 
fillment of  the  prediction  of  Ch'eng  Hsu's  wife- 
slaughter. 

"Where  do  you  think  the  bauble  is  ?"  Ting  Tzu  said 
coolly. 

"Bauble !"  screamed  Ping-yang.  "Oh !  my  jade  drag- 
on.    Oh !  I  tell  you  find  it,  Ting  Tzu." 

"Where?" 

"I  must  have  dropped  it  near  the  sun-dial  in  the 
courtyard,  near  the  Hoang  Ko  tree  when  Ko  was  tug- 
ging at  my  chains.'* 

Ting  Tzu  sauntered  towards  the  door. 

"Hurry,"  Ping-yang  begged. 

"It  is  too  hot  to  hurry."  But  she  sauntered  a  little 
less  provokingly  slowly. 

But  Ping-yang  sprang  up  vehemently,  and  rushing 
to  her,  clutched  her  back.  "Not  like  that,"  she  said  in 
a  sharp,  business-like  voice,  pulling  a  stick  pin  from 
Ting  Tzu's  hair  and  thrusting  it  in  again  at  what  she 
considered  a  more  seductive  slant.  "Wait!  Wait,  I 
say,  you  need  more  paint !" 

But  that  was  too  much.  Ting  Tzu  thrust  her  off. 
"You  have  gone  mad,"  the  younger  sister  mocked. 
"More  paint  to  go  look  for  an  old  stick  pin  in  the  court- 
yard. Was  it  a  stick  pin  though?"  she  added  from  the 
doorway,  "or  a  dangle  of  your  chain?" 

"Yes — ^yes.     I  mean  both !" 

"Indeed!    And  what  kind  of  jade?" 

"Yes,  yes.     Any  kind." 

Ting  Tzu's  lazy  suspicion  was  convinced  and  scoffinj 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  63 

skepticism  now.  But  she  threw  her  sister  a  scornful 
glance,  and  went  off,  laughing  to  herself,  to  see  what 
was  at  the  sun-dial  near  the  Hoang  Ko  tree — to  see 
^vhat  hoax  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  was  playing  now. 

Ch'eng  Chu-po  was  at  the  sun-dial  near  the  Hoang 
Ko  tree,  playing  with  Ch'eng  Ko. 

Ting  Tzu  saw  him  before  he  saw  her.  She  gave  a 
little  smothered  breath,  and  went  a  step  nearer  him.  If 
he  had  never  seen  a  girl,  she  had  seen  many  men  young 
and  comely.  She  had  many  brothers,  and  more  than 
once  at  home  and  from  the  curtains  of  her  palanquin 
had  peeped.  A  tiny  smile  curved  her  pretty  painted 
lips.  She  knew  now  why  Ping-yang  had  cried  out  for 
more  rouge,  and  told  her  idiotic  lies  about  a  bit  of  jade 
that  was  stick  pin,  neck  dangle  and  both.  She  took 
another  step,  a  very  cautious  step,  gave  a  tiny  musical 
scream,  dropped  her  eyes  in  great  confusion,  and  stood 
stock  still — one  hand  clutching  her  robe  above  her  heart 
— 2i  terrified  girl  too  overcome  to  retreat  or  move. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  looked  up,  and  Ko  fell  thump  upon 
the  ground — too  angry  even  to  cry  out.  But  he  might 
have  cried  the  courtyard  down,  for  all  the  help  he  could 
have  wrung  from  aunt  or  uncle  now. 

Their  hour  had  come. 

There  was  neither  question  nor  entreaty  in  Ch*eng 
Chii-po's  blazing  eyes.  They  worshiped,  but  they 
claimed  her.  And  as  he  gazed  she  lifted  her  jeweled 
head  and  looked  at  him. 

It  was  betrothal. 

Neither  spoke,  or  yet  thought  to  speak.  There  was 
no  need. 

Ch'eng  Ko  sucked  his  thumb  amazed — too  interested 
now  to  wail,  or  assert  his  outraged  dignity. 


64  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  held  out  a  hand. 

Ting  Tzu  went  toward  him  a  step.  Birds  have  gone 
to  snakes  so,  and  sunflowers  turned  toward  the  sun. 

Ch*eng  Chii-po  reached  out  both  arms. 

"My  lord!"  she  whispered  to  him. 

"Ting  Tzu!"  he  cried  at  that,  and  moved  on  her» 
but  not  far — ^with  all  the  passion  of  his  sex  and  years 
in  face  and  voice^ — and  all  the  passion  of  his  passion- 
ate race,  all  the  passion  of  inviolate  manhood  patrician 
bom. 

Ko  wriggled  fatly  afoot,  to  get  a  fuller  view. 

"Ting  Tzu,"  whispered  Chii-po  tenderly,  as  her 
mother  might  have  done. 

The  dark-eyed  girl  gave  a  little  joyful  sob.  Then, 
at  a  thought,  she  clapped  sudden  palms  to  her  face, 
and  ran  like  a  lap-wing  into  the  house.  It  was  genu- 
ine. She  had  remembered  how  little  paint  she  wore, 
and  was  shocked  and  appalled  at  the  indecency  of  his 
having  seen  her  so.  And  Ch'eng  Chii-po  understood, 
and  loved  her  better  for  her  modesty. 

She  brushed  by  Ping-yang,  inside  the  door,  and 
would  not  be  caught;  but  she  called  over  her  shoul- 
der as  she  fled,  "Ch'eng  Ko  has  swallowed  your  jade 
dragon." 


CHAPTER  X 

"D  ALKED  of  her  sister,  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  betook 
-^  her  to  her  son.  But  Ch'eng  Ko  had  found  his 
anger  again,  and  his  voice  and  finger-nails.  Twice 
outraged  within  an  hour!  It  infuriated  him  to  the 
proud  baby  soul  of  him.  He  would  have  none  of 
her.  He  spat  naughty  names  at  her,  and  toddled  off 
to  find  Nan  Tung. 

Ping-yang  crept  out  to  the  courtyard. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  was  standing  very  still.  And  when 
she  saw  his  face,  Ping-yang,  sex-wise,  did  not  speak 
to  him,  but  turned  and  went  slowly  back. 

She  was  well  pleased  at  her  success. 

At  last,  she'd  made  a  match.     And  such  a  match! 

There  might  be  trouble  with  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 
Probably  there  would.  It  was  quite  impossible  to  say. 
Good  luck  to  it,  if  there  were !  It  would  be  her  next 
game  to  play — her  next  trick  to  win. 

All  that  day  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  after  she  had  made 
time  to  send  for  Ting  Lo,  and  welcome  him,  sat  in 
conference  with  I  Kung  Moy. 

Toward  sunset  they  sent  for  the  older  mandarin, 
and  late  into  the  night  the  three  sat  together,  deep 
in  earnest  talk — talk  of  China  and  her  perils,  and  no 
word  of  marriage  crept  into  it. 

A  dozen  international  encroachments  shadowed  in 
the  air  even  then,  and  one  or  two  were  well  afoot. 
Japan  longed  and  schemed  for  some  excuse  to  seize 

<5 


66  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Korea,  that  pointed  like  a  dagger  at  her  throat.  Shan* 
tung  and  Liatung  were  marked  for  pawns  in  the  game 
that  Russia  and  Germany  played,  and  were  only  too 
ready  to  play  bloodily.  And  in  that  game,  even  then, 
Japan  dreamed  to  take  a  hand,  sharpening  deadly 
weapons  stealthily  beneath  her  pretty  robes  of  flower- 
and-butterfly  embroidered  silk.  England  held  Hong 
Kong,  and  held  it  arrogantly,  newly  naming  its  city 
and  port  after  England^s  own  queen,  and  telling  decent 
Chinese  at  what  hour  they  must  scurry  from  the  free- 
dom of  the  streets. 

Strict  sense  of  time  is  not  a  Chinese  trait.  And 
among  the  wealthy  there  is  almost  none.  When  they 
are  drowsy  or  weary  they  lie  down.  When  they  are 
hungry  they  eat.  And  when  they  talk  interminably 
tossing  a  subject  back  and  fro — tearing  it  to  tatters, 
leaving  the  main  issue  for  ten  hundred  by-paths — 
harking  back  to  it  again  and  again — stripping  it  naked, 
dressing  it  in  every  elaborate  garnishment  of  quota- 
tion, simile,  historical  allusion,  metaphor,  poetical  quo- 
tations, every  other  sentence  loaded  with  epigram — 
time  ceases  to  move  for  them.  The  cliche  has  great 
pride  of  place  on  every  Chinese  tongue.  Statesmen, 
little  children,  fine  ladies  and  beggar  men  use  com- 
mon tags  of  speech,  bits  of  old  fable  and  countless 
epigrams  as  surely  as  they  talk.  Only  Chinese  memo- 
ries could  hold  the  store  of  common  lore,  of  national 
philosophy  and  classic  tags  of  thought  and  speech 
that  pack  the  Chinese  mind  high  and  low.  And  only 
a  Chinese  mind  could  have  followed  the  intricacies 
and  digressions  of  the  long  converse  of  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiin,  I  Kung  Moy  and  Ting  Lo.  But  for  all  its  seem- 
ing disj ointment,  it  was  succinct  to  them — a  variegated 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  6; 

expression  of  one  crisp  axiom:  The  Foreigner  must 
go— and  a  careful  canvass  of  how  to  enforce  it. 

At  its  close — for  to-day  at  least — ^it  had  been  agreed 
that  each  should  contribute  a  son  or  grandson — one  or 
more — and  much  taels  to  the  immediate  furtherance  of 
the  Cause. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Ch'eng  Yiin  that  having  ac- 
cepted the  necessity  of  banishing  to  Europe  much  of 
China's  best  youth,  risking  and  subjecting  them  to  all 
that  might  befall  them  there,  a  necessity  bitterly  re- 
pugnant to  her,  she  should  push  hotly  to  its  accom- 
plishment. I  Moy  had  come  to  urge  her:  she  urged 
him  now. 

But  when  there  seemed  little  more  to  say  for  the 
moment  on  these  things,  and  she  clapped  her  hands 
for  guest-tea  to  be  brought,  and  the  mandarins  were 
about  to  take  the  hint — as  they  must — and  go,  she 
turned  to  the  father  of  her  daughter-in-law,  and  ex- 
pressed her  pleasure  that  he  had  brought  with  him  his 
younger  girl. 

And  the  pleasure  she  spoke  in  courtesy  might  have 
been  sincere  enough  had  but  Chii-po  kept  his  chance 
view  to  himself.  If  Ping-yang  had  not  been  Ch'eng 
Shao's  favorite  daughter-in-law,  she  had  been  her  least 
troublesome  one,  and  a  marriage  between  Chii-po  and 
Ting  Tzii  would  fit  in  rarely  with  his  mother's  plans. 
The  girl's  dower  would  be  enormous.  The  girl's  an- 
cestry could  not  have  been  bettered.  And  here  was 
an  unforced  opportunity  at  hand  to  see  the  girl's  per- 
son, and  study  her  character  for  herself  before  in- 
itiating a  proposal  from  which  it  might  be  awkward 
to  withdraw.  But  Chii-po's  ill-advised  display  of  will- 
ingness made  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  strangely  unwilling 


68  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

for  the  match.  However,  the  girl  was  here,  and  she 
might  as  well  have  a  look  at  her.  Indeed,  hospitality 
and  the  merest  politeness  demanded  that  and  more. 
So  when  Ting  left  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  he  took  a  gra- 
cious message,  saying  that  on  the  morrow  they  should 
meet. 

Ting  Tzii  had  been  surprised  that  the  message  had 
not  come  before,  and  Ping-yang  was  affronted  by  the 
delay,  and  for  that  all  the  more  determined  to  cir- 
cumvent the  opposition  from  Ch'eng  Yiin,  which  she 
foresaw,  to  the  consummation  of  the  match  she  had 
so  successfully  made. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  would  have  preferred  to  take  Ting 
Tzu  unaware,  by  running  across  her  at  some  unusual 
hour  in  Ping-yang's  quarters.  But  she  concluded  to  be- 
gin with  no  such  flagrant  breach  of  etiquette  her  ac- 
quaintance with  a  girl  so  high  born  and  who  might 
become  the  first  wife  of  her  favorite  son — though  she 
had  practically  determined  that  the  girl  should  not. 

She  knew  that  this  was  weakness  on  her  part; 
and  she  despised  it.  But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  taken 
her  own  way  too  long  to  be  thwarted  of  it  even  by 
herself.  She  had  determined  to  send  Chii-po  to  Eng- 
land because  she  loved  him  less  than  she  loved  China, 
and  to  part  with  him,  to  lose  him  even,  would  hurt 
her  less  than  it  would  to  refrain  from  any  possible 
service  to  China.  And,  if  China  were  to  be  benefited 
by  this  new  hideous  means,  the  house  of  Ch'eng  must 
not  be  left  out  of  the  priesthood  of  the  sacrificial  move- 
ment. And,  if  a  Ch'eng  were  sent,  it  must  be  the 
best  of  all  the  Ch'engs.  But  in  the  selection  of  a  bride 
she  felt  no  such  compulsion  to  scourge  herself.  It 
uras  for  her  to  select,  and  for  Chii-po  to  accept.  And 
she  intended  that  it  should  be  so. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  69 

Chii-po  had  made  no  attempt  to  see  Ting  Tzu  again. 
The  sisters  had  expected  it,  and  Nan  Tung  had  hov- 
ered near  his  door  and  across  his  path,  ready  to  take 
a  token  or  a  word.  Chii-po  understood  why  he  ran 
across  the  handmaid  so  often  in  one  day,  but  he  gave 
no  sign.  And,  fortunately,  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  her  mistress  had  given  her  the  cue — still  less  that 
Ting  Tzu  was  party  to  the  ruse.  Nor  was  Ting  Tzu. 
Chii-po's  name  had  not  passed  her  pretty  painted  lips, 
nor  any  hint  of  him. 

The  Chinese  boy  was  finer  than  his  women-folk.  He 
had  been  glad  of  the  encounter  that  had  confirmed  his 
infatuation  of  the  previous  day.  But  he  had  no  wish 
to  press  farther  a  clandestine  suit.  He  had  her  prom- 
ise, and  she  had  accepted  his.  That  was  fixed  and 
firm,  although  no  word  had  passed  beyond  his  whisper 
of  her  name,  her  whisper  of  "My  lord."  It  was  ecstasy 
to  know  that  they  were  bound — indissolubly  bound, 
and  that  they  mutually  acknowledged  it,  and  mutually 
rejoiced.  But  all  the  rest  should  be  done  in  propriety, 
as  his  ancestors  and  hers  had  been  wedded  for  three 
thousand  years.  He  had  no  wish  to  see  Ting  Tzii 
again,  or  hear  her  voice,  until  he  lifted  the  red  veil 
from  her  face  on  their  marriage  hour.  If  another 
meeting  now  had  been  offered  him  in  plainer  terms,  he 
would  have  avoided  it.  And  had  her  shadow  fallen 
upon  the  grass  when  he  walked  by  the  tulip  beds,  he 
would  have  turned  his  eyes  aside,  and  strode  away. 
While  they  lived  he  would  not  yield  her  or  his  right 
in  her.  Nothing  should  move  him  from  that.  But 
he  would  not  approach  her  until  marriage — scarcely 
with  a  thought — or  suffer  her  to  be  cheapened.  But 
when  he  learned  that  she  and  Ping-yang  were  going 
at  noon  to  the  temple  in  the  bamboo  grove,  he  hurried 


70  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

to  the  path  beside  the  flamingoes'  house  where  sho 
must  pass,  and  strewed  it  with  jessamine  flowers — not 
ostentatiously,  but  here  and  there  a  spray  that  might  all 
have  fallen  from  some  careless  hand — that  he  might  go 
there  again  and  find  perhaps  some  spray  her  foot  had 
crushed. 

Nan  Tung,  watching,  saw  him  do  it.  But  she  told 
no  one  but  Ah  S5ng,  not  even  Ch'eng  Ping-yang,  and 
Ah  Song  told  no  one. 

And  when  passing  by  the  yellow  oleanders  Ch'eng 
Ping-yang  exclaimed  and  bent  down  to  lift  up  a  spray 
of  jessamine — Nan  Tung  stayed  her  with  a  cry.  The 
lady  must  not,  it  was  ill-luck.  And  Ping-yang,  as 
superstitious  as  any  living  woman,  obeyed.  But  Ting 
Tzu  said,  "What  nonsense.  Where  is  it  written?  No- 
where, I  think.  We  have  no  such  warning  in  ChiWi," 
and  bent  down  and  lifted  up  the  spray,  and  smelling  it 
drew  it  across  her  face,  and  tucked  it  at  her  throat. 
And  another  spray,  that  she  did  not  see,  she  trod  upon 
and  crushed  a  little  with  her  light  foot. 

And  Nan  Tung  fell  behind  giggling. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TT  was  the  same  day  that  the  three^ — Ch'eng  Yiin 
-■•  and  her  guests — sat  in  such  long  conclave,  that 
Ping-yang  and  her  sister  went  to  the  temple  to  pray, 
to  deck  it  with  a  lotus  flower  at  the  old  god's  feet,  and 
to  fume  it  with  joss-sticks.  The  old  year  had  but  two 
days  to  run,  and  on  New  Year's  Day  all  must  be  in 
order  for  the  gods,  and  all  slight  earth  enmities  for- 
sworn, all  earth  debts  paid.  And  still  more  must  tem- 
ples be  swept  and  decked,  and  gods  appeased  when  the 
Feast  of  Lanterns — but  seventeen  days  off  now — 
dawned. 

The  old  joss  sat  on  a  pedestal,  and  Ting  Tzu  tip- 
toed up  to  stare  him  in  the  face.  It  was  wonderful 
how  the  little  mutilated  feet — just  one  toe  each— could 
do  it.  But  they  did.  And  Ting  Tzu  swayed  in  perfect 
balance  leisurely,  and  took  a  good,  long  look. 

"He  needs  a  new  coat  of  paint,"  she  said  disgust- 
edly, tottering  down  on  to  her  heels,  "and  lots  of  gilt." 

"Our  gods  all  do,"  Ping-yang  answered  with  a  shrug. 
"They  are  all  a  shabby  sight.  I  wouldn't  keep  a  coolie 
so.  But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  is  angry  with  the  gods,  and 
keeps  them  so  for  punishment." 

Ting  Tzu  was  a  pious  little  thing,  but  she  was  in 
no  humor  to  join  in  criticism  of  the  lady  mother  of 
Ch'eng  Chii-po.  "The  gods  must  do  their  part,"  she 
said. 

"They  have  to  here,"  Ch'eng  Ping-yang  laughed, 
"or  go  like  poor  Wealth  God,  and  worse.    See,"  and 

71 


72  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

she  touched  a  deq)  welt  in  the  lacquer  shoulder  of  the 
god,  "Ch'eng  Yiin  thrashed  him  well  one  day.  And 
I  have  heard  her  threaten  to  burn  him." 

Ting  Tzu  was  plainly  shocked.  But  she  only  said 
gently,  *1  shouldn't  like  to  burn  a  god."  But  she  tip- 
toed up  again  and  dusted  the  Wealth  God's  grimy  nose 
with  her  scarf,  and  touched  his  long,  ugly  scar  com- 
passionately. "Never  mind,"  she  whispered  as  she  lit 
another  bundle  of  incense,  and  stuck  it  where  the  slight- 
est breeze  must  puff  its  delicious  sweetness  up  to  the 
worn  and  paintless  nose,  "you  shall  have  a  new  coat, 
a  very  bright  new  coat  of  paint,  and  lots  of  finest  gilt 
some  day."  And  then  blushing  furiously  at  what  the 
promise  implied  of  her  future  power  in  the  temples  of 
the  Ch'engs,  she  plumped  down  on  her  heels  and  was 
lost  in  prayer. 

"Trusting  a  foreigner  is  *like  climbing  a  tree  to 
catch  a  fish,'  "  Ch'eng  Y-iin  was  saying,  when  Ting  Tzu 
had  bent  down  and  picked  up  a  yellow  jessamine  spray, 
and  she  was  saying  the  self -same  thing  two  hours 
later  when  Ch'eng  Chu-po  slipped  through  the  ole- 
ander trees,  and  caught  up  a  spray  of  jessamine  from 
the  grass. 

It  was  early  next  day  when  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  sent 
for  Ting  Tzu.  The  girl  was  glad  to  go,  and  rose,  shy 
but  eager,  when  the  message  came.  She  had  grown 
a  little  impatient  waiting  for  the  courtesy.  Ch'eng 
Yiin  bade  Ping-yang  to  her  presence  too,  but  Ping- 
yang  was  seized  with  a  sudden  cramp,  pressed  her 
hands  to  her  head,  and  toddled  moaning  to  her  own 
room,  sending  a  humble  message  to  her  husband's 
mother  by  Ch'eng  Hsu.    Then  she  clapped  her  hands 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  73 

for  Nan  Tung  to  let  down  all  the  blinds,  all  but  half 
of  one  nearest  her  mat,  then  bring  her  a  novel  and  a 
gorge  of  rich  sweetmeats.  And  Ting  Tzu  went  in  to 
Ch'eng  Yiin  alone. 

The  stricken  Ping-yang  dearly  would  have  liked  to 
have  gone  too,  and  listen  and  watch.  But  as  the  elder 
and  married  sister  etiquette  would  have  obliged  Yiin 
to  address  to  her  most  of  her  remarks  and  attention, 
and  Ping-yang  contentedly  secure  of  the  impression 
the  child  would  make,  and  divining  too  that  Ting  Tzu 
would  be  less  embarrassed  so,  resigned  herself  to  soli- 
tude— which  she  hated — to  cramp  and  to  sv/eetmeats. 

And  so  Ting  Tzu  went  in  alone. 

The  girl  was  frightened  and  very  shy.  But  she 
was  happy. 

Ting  Tzu  was  prepared  to  love. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  prepared  to  hate. 

Sometimes  love  conquers  hate.  Sometimes  hate  con-* 
quers  love. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  had  made  but  little  toilet.  Why  should 
she?  Even  to  herself  she  would  not  acknowledge  that 
the  visitor  she  had  sent  for  was,  in  any  sense,  a  rival. 
Ch'eng  Yiin  dressed  with  care  and  splendidly  for  guests 
of  importance,  for  Chu-po  always,  and  for  the  gods, 
when  they  were  good,  but  by  no  chance  for  a  little  girl 
who  came  but  for  an  hour. 

She  sat  on  a  low  dais  at  the  carved  and  cushioned 
divan's  farther  side — alone  but  for  blind  Ah  Song,, 
who  sat  in  the  shadow  of  the  divan  tatting  noise- 
lessly. 

Yes — the  girl  was  beautiful.  Ch'eng  Yiin  could  but 
see  it  at  a  glance.  The  robe  of  violet  satin  embroidered 
with  lemon  chrysanthemum  flowers  and  gray-green 
leaves,  slashed  open  above  a  vest  and  trousers  of  bright 


74  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

delicate  green,  turquoise-sewn  and  tied  with  silver 
cords,  each  end  a  pearl,  and  the  jewels  that  she  wore 
— rings,  nail  protectors,  buttons  sparkling  on  her  coat, 
and  all  the  gems  pendant  from  her  hair  were  rich  and 
beautiful,  even  in  China.  But  they  were  little  to  the 
girl.  And  with  all  her  Chinese  worship  of  beauty 
speaking  in  her  veins,  Ch'eng  Yiin  found  the  friendly, 
lovely  eyes  a  little  hard  to  hate.  And  the  child's  car- 
riage was  as  faultless  as  her  face.  Even  in  dingy, 
soiled  sackcloth  she  must  have  looked  unmistakably 
what  Chii-po  had  proudly  called  her :  a  lady  girl.  The 
jessamine  in  her  hair  was  no  sweeter  than  her  timid 
smile.  And  when  Ch'eng  Yiin  looked  down  sharply 
at  the  other's  feet,  she  almost  smiled,  her  face  grew 
a  little  more  amiable,  and  Ah  Song  knew  that  her  sigh 
was  one  of  relief.  The  feet  of  Ting  Tzii  were  just  a 
shade  larger  than  the  feet  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 

That  they  had  been  well  bound  the  woman  knew 
the  instant  she  saw  her  move.  Ting  Tzu  swayed  like 
a  zephyr-buffeted  lily  as  she  came,  but  she  neither  stag- 
gered nor  splodged.  Ting  Tzu  was  mistress  of  her 
feet.  And  when  Yiin  spoke  to  her,  she  answered  in 
a  voice  that  was  startlingly  sweet.  No  wonder  Chii-po 
had  lost  his  silly  head.  What  must  he  not  have  done, 
if  he  had  heard  that  scented,  silver  voice? 

Ch'eng  Yiin  bade  Ting  Tzu  to  a  seat,  and  when  all 
the  needed  ceremonial  things  had  been  said,  she  ques- 
tioned her,  "How  do  you  like  Ho-nan?" 

"Here,"  Ting  Tzu  told  her,  "and  for  leagues  before 
we  reached  your  honorable  gates,  it  is  more  beautiful 
even  than  my  own  home.  But  my  honorable  father, 
who  has  traveled  much,  tells  me  that  all  China  is  very 
beautiful" 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  75 

"In  which  province  would  you  wish  to  live  when 
you  are  wedded  ?"  Yiin  said  graciously. 

Ting  Tzu  reddened  a  little  beneath  her  paint — she 
was  well  painted  to-day — but  the  eyes  lifted  to  the 
shrewder  woman's  eyes  did  not  flinch.  'That/'  she 
answered  quietly,  "is  as  my  honorable  father  pleases." 

"But  have  you  had  no  dream — of  a  province?" 

"Of  a  province,  honorable  lady,  oh,  yes.  I  have 
dreamed  always  of  Shantung." 

"Why?"  Ch'eng  Yiin  said  sharply. 

"That  I  might  live  in  the  province  of  the  holy  crys- 
tal tree,"  the  girl  said  softly. 

Ah  Song  laid  her  tatting  on  the  checkered  floor,  and 
rose  and  stood  near  Ting  Tzii. 

"Shantung!"  exclaimed  Ch'eng  Yiin,  "there  are 
devils  dicing  for  Shantung — devils  that  live  on  a  river 
called  the  Rhine,  devils  from  Nippo,  and  for  all  I  know 
from  France  and  England  too." 

"They  must  be  killed,  then,"  Ting  Tzu  said  proudly. 
And  hatred  had  had  a  blow — beneath  the  belt  perhaps. 
But  often  it  is  so  that  women  hit. 

Ah  Song  sat  down  on  the  floor,  and  touched  with 
her  hand  Ting  Tzu's  little  padded  shoe.  And  the  girl 
looked  down,  and  knowing  her  history,  she  laid  her 
finger  tips  just  a  moment  on  the  blind  woman's  face. 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  liked  the  girl  for  that.  Oh!  her 
blood  told — ^there  was  no  denying  that. 

Presently  Ti-to-ti  left  his  mistress's  side,  and  came 
and  looked  up  at  the  visitor  with  a  little  yelped  request. 

"May  I?"  Ting  Tzu  asked  Ch'eng  Yiin  prettily. 

Yun  nodded  pleasantly.  She  began  to  Hke  the  girl, 
in  spite  of  herself — and  to  like  her  very  much. 

Ting  Tzu  hesitated  to  caress  or  lift  the  tiny  plead- 


76  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

ing  creature  because  of  the  fineness  of  her  breeding 
— and  from  a  natural  instinct  of  deference  to  a  woman 
older  than  herself,  and  her  hostess.  The  little  Chi- 
nese girl  was  but  a  child  and  worldly  green.  This 
visit  was  more  of  a  social  function  than  had  fallen 
to  her  before.  But  her  ancestors  had  been  gentle  for 
hundreds  of  years.  But  her  little  natural  courtesy  had 
an  especial  appeal  to  Ch'eng  Yiin,  among  whose  sharp 
traits  was  a  violent  resentment  of  any  touching  of  a 
personal  belonging  of  her  own — above  all  a  living 
belonging. 

The  girl  lifted  the  tiny  wriggling  creature,  and  cud- 
dled his  soft  curly  head  under  her  chin.  And  Ti-to-ti's 
big  bulging  beads  of  eyes  almost  bulged  out  of  their 
sockets  with  gratification,  and  his  tiny  tail  beat  a  vio- 
lent ecstasy  against  her  breast.  And  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yun  could  but  read  it  for  an  augury,  for  Ti-to-ti  rarely 
made  friends,  and  he  was  very  psychic. 

She  kept  the  girl  with  her  more  than  an  hour,  and 
questioned  her  mercilessly.  What  had  she  read  ?  Could 
she  write  the  grass  characters  rapidly  and  exactly? 
What  were  her  accomplishments?  Did  her  feet  ever 
hurt?  Did  she  like  jewels  best,  or  birds  and  flowers? 
The  one  ornament  in  the  room  was  a  porcelain  ewer 
of  thin,  crisp  Ming  ware  of  the  L'ung  Ch'ing  period, 
with  a  long  rustic  spout,  and  the  characteristic  faint 
green  glaze  over  its  white  surface,  and  silvery-blue 
panels  of  figure  subjects;  a  graceful,  priceless  thing 
the  Ch^engs  had  owned  for  more  than  three  hundred 
years.  Ch'eng  Yiin  bade  Ting  Tzu  take  it  up  and  feel 
its  glaze — and  say  what  she  thought  of  it. 

All  this  would  have  been  a  rudeness,  and  perhaps 
a  cruelty,  from  an  Occidental  woman — and  an  embar- 
rassment, if  not  an  angering  to  an  English  girL    But 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  77 

Ting  Tzu  took  it  in  the  best  of  all  good  part.  She 
approved  it  cordially,  conscious  that  just  so  carefully 
would  she  catechize  a  girl  she  thought  to  ask  in  mar- 
riage for  her  son,  should  the  gods  bless  her  to  have 
a  son  to  her  lord  Ch'eng  Chii-po — as  no  doubt  they 
would.  For  she  had  learned  his  name  from  lisping 
Ch'eng  Ko. 

She  took  the  porcelain  gravely,  and  chatted  happily 
of  ceramics,  and  of  the  greater  arts  which  they  but 
reflected.  And  when  Ch'eng  Yiin  bade  her  play  and 
sing,  she  rose  instantly  and  selected  a  lute  from  the 
instruments  lying  on  a  window  ledge,  and  to  its  accom- 
paniment sang  a  silvery  staccato  song. 

And  again,  in  spite  of  Ch'eng  Yiin,  she  pleased 
Ch'eng  Yun.  For  it  was  not  the  amorous  love  song 
that  the  woman  had  half  expected — and  that  most  Chi- 
nese girls  would  have  sung,  knowing  few  else — that 
Ting  Tzu  sang,  but  an  old  classic  thing,  vestal  simple 
and  sweet,  about  the  stars  and  trees. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  nodded  approval.  Then,  testing  her 
taste  once  more — and  liking  her  voice,  bade  Tzu  sing 
again. 

And  Ting  Tzu  sang  a  little  song  of  Spring  that  Wei 
Ying-wu  had  written  twenty-seven  centuries  before : — 

"When  freshets  cease  in  early  spring  and  the  river  dwindles 

low 
I  take  my  staff  and  wander  by  the  banks  where  wild  flowers 

grow. 
I  watch  the  willow  catkins  wildly  whirled  on  every  side; 
I  watch  the  falling  peachbloom  lightly  floating  down  the 

tide." 

Then  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  called  for  the  guest-tea, 
which  bade  the  girl  go.     And  she  went  happily  and 


78  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

happy — delighted  with  the  mother  of  lord  Ch'eng 
Chii-po.  And  when  she  slept  that  night  she  dreamed 
that  the  room  was  full  of  wild  ducks,  circling  o'er  her 
head,  and  that  beneath  them  Ch'eng  Chii-po  bent  over 
her  with  eyes  aflame,  smiling  at  her  through  a  mist  of 
crimson  gauze. 

But  Ch'eng  Shao  Y.iin,  when  the  door  panel  had 
closed  in  again,  rested  her  face  in  covering  hands,  and 
sat  a  long,  long  time  lost  in  thought  and  jealousy. 


CHAPTER  XII 

NO  other  people  work  at  once  so  hard  and  so 
sanely  as  the  Chinese  do.  Almost  every  month 
has  its  holiday-break,  and,  if  the  lives  of  the  hard- 
working populace  were  not  so  punctuated  and  their 
tremendous  toil  so  punctured,  it  seems  improbable  that 
even  Chinese  grit  could  stand  the  enormous  strain  to 
which  Chinese  industry  subjects  it. 

New  Year's  Day  is  the  great  obligatory  day  of  feast 
and  fuss.  Debts  must  be  paid  before  the  New  Year 
dawns.  And  every  one  must  eat  and  play.  No  one 
may  toil.  iWomen  in  labor  and  silk  worms  about  to 
hatch  must  have  some  tendance.  But  nothing  indus- 
trial that  is  avoidable  may  be  performed.  China  halts 
for  the  day,  and  stands  at  attention  before  her  history 
and  her  gods. 

To  commit  suicide  during  the  great  month  of  New 
Year  festival  would  be  too  heinous  a  selfishness,  and, 
far  worse,  it  would  be  bad  form.  And  to  no  people 
is  bad  form  so  impossible  as  to  the  Chinese.  Even 
to  die  is  scarcely  pardonable — to  be  avoided,  or  put 
off,  by  every  possible  device  of  ingenuity.  In  1875 
the  Emperor  died  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  Chinese 
year,  and  the  entailed  omission  of  the  Lantern  ob- 
servances was  as  heavy  a  national  calamity,  as  acute 
a  grief,  as  the  death  of  the  imperial  boy  itself.  No 
profusion  of  lamps  might  be  outhung  on  street  or 
building,  from  the  inn's  pretty  balconies,  in  private 
park  or  on  country  path.    None  might  wear  best  robes. 

79 


8o  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Indeed  not  one  mark  of  the  sacred  feast  might  be 
taken  except  an  inordinate,  and  ahnost  private  gorging 
of  the  traditional  sugared  mince-meat  balls.  And  for 
months  the  national  temper  and  stout  tranquillity  suf- 
fered from  having  lacked  the  tonic  stimulant  of  the  ac- 
customed relaxation  and  inspiration. 

The  Chinese  are  supposed  to  like  noise  because  they 
make  it  so  intensely.  But  this,  as  almost  everything 
else  said  of  Qiina  in  our  generous  Christendom — is 
ignorant  and  libel.  The  unutterable  noise  made  at 
every  Chincce  festival  is  but  a  loud  precaution  to  scare 
the  devils  away.  Devils  are  great  cowards  and  brain- 
less too,  as  every  Chinese  knows.  The  screen  set 
before  the  dwelling's  outer  entrance,  or  just  within 
it,  serves  to  keep  the  demons  out,  only  because  they 
lack  the  wit  to  swerve  a  little  to  the  left  or  right,  and 
pass  it  so.  The  youngest  Chinese  babe  that  has  learned 
to  toddle,  the  dullest  Chinese  dolt,  is  never  thwarted 
for  a  moment  by  the  devil-screen,  but  navigates  se- 
renely past  it  without  an  instant's  loss  of  time.  And 
the  most  devilish  devil  of  all  the  black  art  dares  not 
face  the  incredible,  hideous  noise  of  a  Chinese  fes- 
tival, but  picks  up  his  wicked  tail  and  horns  and 
claws,  and  runs  and  runs  and  runs  from  the  onslaught 
of  such  terrific  din.  Small  boys  and  tender  girls  in 
America  fire  off  fiendish  fire-crackers,  fearsome  tor- 
pedoes and  sizzing  rockets  in  honor  of  sacred  liberty. 
Children  in  England  do  it  in  vindication  of  young 
misrule  and  in  imitation  of  older  drolls.  But,  in 
China,  gray  beards,  priests  and  princes  do  it  to  drive 
the  evil  spirits  cowed  away. 

New  Year  is  the  national  carnival  of  noise.  Even 
the  more  elaborate  fireworks,  that  scream  and  paint 
the  New  Year's  night,  spattering  the  Chinese  sky  with 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  81 

ten  thousand  cascades  of  noisy  stars  and  lurid  flam' 
ing  caricatures  of  a  thousand  famiHar  things,  are 
let  loose  to  the  dark  more  in  rebuke  of  evil  spirit  things 
than  for  pleasuring  of  the  gaping,  living  populace. 

New  Year  festivities  begin  at  the  rising  of  the  yearns 
first  moon.  No  debt  must  be  still  unpaid  when  that 
slender  crescent  breaks  palely  through  the  night.  And 
then  the  month-long  orgie  of  gift-giving  begins,  and 
the  noisy  and  furious  keepings  of  the  New  Year  reek 
and  reel  on  to  end  in  the  Feast  of  Lanterns. 

The  Feast  of  Lanterns  is  the  beauty-keeping  time 
of  the  Chinese,  and  every  item  of  its  observance  is 
full  of  significance  and  of  soul.  It  had  its  birth  two 
thousand  years  ago  when  the  Hun  dynasty  ruled  over 
China.  At  first  it  was  a  formal  ceremonial  rite  of 
worship  performed  in  the  temple  of  the  First  Cause. 
It  lasted  three  days  then.  Now  it  lasts  six,  and  has 
grown  from  its  strict  religious  beginning  to  what  it 
is  now,  the  home  festival,  the  most  elaborate  expres- 
sion of  Chinese  art  and  artifice,  of  Chinese  observance 
and  belief,  of  Chinese  spirit  and  hope — of  Chinese 
brotherhood,  peace  and  good  will.  It  had  no  lanterns 
and  no  name  of  Lanterns  on  its  old  first  day — for 
China  then  was  lanternless.  It  began  on  the  thirteenth 
of  the  first  moon  and  ended  on  the  sixteenth,  bringing 
to  an  end  then,  as  now,  all  the  explosive  festivities  of 
the  New  Yearns  festival;  visits,  feasts  and  shrill  up- 
roar. The  moon  at  its  full  round  was  the  light  by 
which  the  devout  sacrificed  and  prayed  to  the  great 
First  Cause,  with  an  excess  of  ritual  which  even  Egypt 
never  surpassed.  For  eight  hundred  years  they  kept  it 
as  at  first,  and  then  the  lanterns  came — the  lovely, 
eloquent  lanterns  that  are  now  as  characteristic  of 
China  as  is  any  inanimate  thing,  specking  with  quaint 


82  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

beauty,  drenching  with  fantastic  shapes  of  light,  her 
every  night,  her  palace  parks,  her  lonely  mountain 
paths,  the  banks  of  her  heaving  Yellow  Sorrow,  her 
precipices,  her  barnyards  and  her  glens,  and  with  their 
pretty  parti-colored  outlining  make  every  Chinese  street 
of  night-merchandise  a  votive  grotto  and  a  fair.  An- 
other three  hundred  years  and  the  beloved  festival — 
the  Chinese  love  it  best  of  all — was  stretched  by  some 
days,  and  so — as  now — ^when  Ting  Tzu  and  her  father 
kept  it  in  the  home  of  the  Ch'engs — it  lasted  full  six 
days  and  nights.  The  third  day  of  the  Feast  of  Lan- 
terns is  its  great  day  of  all,  and  on  the  nineteenth  of 
the  moon,  at  dawn,  China  bends  again  her  strong  yel- 
low back  and  takes  up  the  heavy  workaday  burdens 
of  common  daily  life. 

I  Kung  Moy  had  gone  on  the  second  day  of  the 
year.  On  New  Year's  Day  itself  he  could  not  travel 
— and  his  business  with  the  lady  Ch'eng  iiad  kept  him 
in  Ho-nan  till  then — but  Ting  Lo  and  his  girl  lingered 
still — the  mandarin  nothing  loath,  and  urged  by  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin.  She  was  not  ill-pleased  to  show  him  how 
the  House  of  Ch'eng  kept  holiday,  and  he  was  glad 
to  be  the  longer  with  Ping-yang,  and  glad  to  keep  from 
home,  because  of  a  new  young  wife  who  was  a  shrew, 
and  had  made  of  the  Lanterns'  last  feast  a  penance 
and  a  scourge.  December  and  June  mate  more  hap- 
pily in  China  than  elsewhere,  because  Chinese  age  is 
virile  and  well-knit,  and  Chinese  youth  is  deft  and 
content.  But  even  in  China  such  union  is  but  make- 
shift at  best,  and  a  desperate  gamble  always.  It  had 
worked  badly  in  the  yamen  and  in  the  home  of  Ting 
Lo.  And  this,  his  absence  from  home  at  the  Feast 
of  Lanterns,  was  almost  without  precedent.    It  is  the 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  83 

one  time  in  the  year  when  every  Chinese  wills  and 
tries  to  be  at  home. 

And  it  is  the  Chinese  time  of  woman's  public  license. 
Within  her  "flowery  quarters"  she  has  extraordinary 
license  all  the  time.  But  during  the  Lantern  Feast 
she  may  mingle  freely  in  the  crowds  of  men — even 
unveiled,  if  she  will,  unless  herself  a  stickler  and  of 
highest  rank — going  on  foot,  or  carried  in  her  litter, 
to  see  and  swell  the  laughing,  chattering  throng,  and 
all  the  sumptuous  show,  and  masque  of  light. 

All  was  in  readiness.  The  cakes  were  baked,  and 
the  lanterns  hung.  The  cakes  were  piled  in  mountains, 
heaped  in  thousands  on  lacquer  trays:  the  flat  round 
moon-cakes,  crisp,  wafer-thin,  honey  sw^eetened  disks 
— and  the  small  white  globes  of  sugar-covered  mince- 
meat that  are  sacred  to  the  feast.  These  are  cere- 
monial balls  and  are  made  with  the  greatest  care  and 
exactitude,  of  one  perfect  snowy  white,  round  as  a 
billiard  ball  and  about  two-thirds  its  size.  For  days 
the  Ch'eng  kitchens  had  been  busied  with  their  pretty 
manufacture,  and  in  every  home  in  China  some  at 
least  were  made.  And  the  greedy  kitchen  gods  licked 
their  fat  lips  in  hungry  anticipation,  for  to  the  kitchen 
gods  always  are  given  the  first  batch  of  the  Lantern 
cakes  else  would  they  be  tough  and  bring  cramp.  They 
are  the  one  item  of  the  Lantern  feasting  never  omitted. 
Even  if  an  Emperor  lies  newly  dead — as  in  1875 — 
and  every  other  detail  of  the  great  play-time  is  fore- 
gone, the  cakes  are  made  and  are  eaten  in  incredible 
quantities.  The  lower  class  and  middle  class  Chinese, 
and  many  of  those  in  purple  born,  eat  melon  seeds  all 
the  time.     But  once  a  year,  all  China  to  a  tooth,  de- 


84  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

vours  the  round,  white  lantern  cakes.  The  day  before 
Ch'eng  Ko  and  his  mother  already  had  devoured  some 
pounds  of  them — she  had  helped  to  make  them,  with 
her  sleeves  tucked  away  from  her  arms — from  dimpled 
wrist  to  dimpled  elbow — from  elbow  to  dimpled  shoul- 
der; and  before  the  festival  was  as  many  hours  old 
as  his  years,  Ko  had  crunched  and  swallowed  so  many 
of  the  sick-sweet  things  that  his  little  yellow  belly 
stuck  out  from  him  as  round  and  hard  as  they. 

The  decorating  of  the  grounds  and  of  the  houses, 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  supervised  herself.  A  Chinese  in- 
terior must  be  sparsely  adorned,  lest  beauty  jostle 
beauty,  and  jostling  clash.  One  flower  in  one  fine  vase, 
and  the  finest  room  in  China  is  adorned  enough.  But 
at  festival  time  every  tree,  every  shrub  and  bridge, 
every  point  from  which  anything  will  hang,  to  which 
anything  can  be  fastened  out  of  doors,  is  begilt  and 
bespattered  with  streamers,  artificial  flowers,  strips  of 
gilt  and  festoons  of  lanterns. 

Many  Chinese  lanterns  are  costly  and  veritable  works 
of  art.  Some  hanging  gayly  now,  roped  and  garlanded 
from  tree  to  tree,  coolies  had  brought  in  hundreds 
from  K'ai-feng  Fu  and  Ch'en-Chow  Fu  but  the  other 
day.  Others  were  heirlooms  kept  with  the  family  jades 
and  bronze,  and  almost  as  valuable. 

Those  not  reserved  for  the  procession  of  the  great 
night,  she  had  festooned  about  the  place  for  criss- 
crossed miles.  It  was  important  that  the  pretty, 
painted,  pendent  baubles  should  be  so  arranged  as  to 
give  the  greatest  pleasure  to  the  onlooking  spirits  of 
the  dead,  who  at  this  time  at  least  moved  and  lived 
again  with  their  kindred.  And  so  Ch'eng  Yiin  ar- 
ranged and  rearranged  till,  of  the  hundred  helpers 
who  worked  with  her,  every  back  and  arm  ached  but 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  8  J 

her  indefatigable  own.  Nor  was  this  work  alone  for 
hireling  hands.  Taste  was  as  essential  as  strength. 
Her  sons  worked  with  her,  and  even  their  wives.  And 
for  this  one  festival  the  women  of  the  harems  darted 
busily  here  and  there  on  their  tiny,  nimble  feet — veiled, 
of  course,  but  not  so  thickly  that  they  could  not  see 
to  do  all  the  intricacies  of  her  bidding.  And  many  a 
veil  slipped  off;  and  no  one  cared — least  of  all  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin,  a  tyrannous  stickler  for  decorum  and  tra- 
dition where  neither  interfered  with  the  common  sense 
and  business  of  the  hour,  but  as  ruthless  on  occasion 
in  her  disregard  of  etiquette  and  others'  opinion,  as  of 
the  disinfavored  gods.  Ting  Tzu  tripped  beside  her, 
silent,  a  little  in  her  wake.  Ting  Tzu  was  closely 
veiled — for  she  was  not  at  home  here,  and  would 
take  no  license  of  her  maiden  state.  But  the  veil 
thinned  a  little  across  her  eyes — and  as  she  walked 
she  smoked.  It  was  easy  enough  to  slip  the  slender 
stem  of  her  tiny -bowled  pipe  between  the  edges  of 
her  pearl  sewn  veil.  She  held  it  decorously  together 
with  one  little  gem-heavy  hand,  and  with  the  other  she 
managed  her  jeweled  pipe,  emptying  it  with  a  quick 
twist  of  her  wrist,  and  filling  it  again,  from  the  em- 
broidered pouch  hanging  at  her  girdle,  every  few  mo- 
ments; for  the  diminutive  bowl  held  but  a  pinch  of 
the  silky,  scented  tobacco.  And  she  took  no  part  in 
the  work — that  was  a  family  toil,  for  Ch'eng  hands, 
and  liegemen  of  the  Ch'eng.  Perhaps  she'd  help  next 
year.  And  at  the  thought  she  sighed  a  little,  remem- 
bering that  she  might  never  keep  the  feast  again  in 
her  childhood's  home,  or  hang  her  silken  lanterns  on 
the  tulip  trees  that  sentineled  her  father's  doors.  It 
had  been  such  a  happy,  happy  home  until  her  father's 
new  young  wife  had  come.     And  even  so  her  father. 


86  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

for  her  sake,  defied  the  pretty  shrew  now  and  then, 
as  he  had  in  coming  here  and  bringing  Tzu  with  him. 

Chii-po  held  aloof.  He  had  never  cared  to  work 
with  his  hands.  He  sat  for  the  most  part  on  the 
fantastic  stone  railing  of  a  bridge  or  on  some  carved 
stone  seat,  and  tweaked  his  lute.  And  when  they 
were  near  enough,  his  mother  called  to  him  for  com- 
ment or  advice,  and  he  called  them  gayly  back.  But 
he  never  looked  at  Ting  Tzu,  or  she  toward  him. 
And  at  last  he  went  away — and  they  saw  him  no  more 
that  day. 

On  the  roofs  and  crevices  of  the  silkworm  houses, 
Ch'eng  Yun  suffered  no  lanterns  to  be  hung,  lest  the 
light  and  the  myriad  candles'  heat  should  creep  in  and 
harm  the  delicate  brooding  worms.  But  festoons  of 
rich  scented  flowers,  orange  blossoms,  arbutus,  sweet 
laurel-like  tung  ch'ing  holly,  and  the  perfumed  blos- 
soms and  lovely  tinted  foliage  of  the  tallow  tree,  she 
had  hung  there  instead.  For  the  silkworms  love  every 
sweet  fragrance,  and  it  nourishes  them. 

When  your  feet  have  taken  silk,  and  they  are  happier 
than  they  have  ever  been  before,  do  you  ever  give 
a  thought  to  the  nun-like  girls  in  China  that  were 
foster-mothers  to  the  delicate  wormlings  that  spun  your 
stockings'  super-silk? 

The  story  of  silk  is  the  story  of  a  woman's  move- 
ment, and  a  womanly  movement — not  always  quite  the 
same  thing.  Men  are  interlopers  in  sericulture,  and 
somewhat  recent  ones.  They  have  been  useful  along 
the  line  of  its  commercial  development;  but  the  honor 
and  the  history  belong  to  women. 

Silk  was  born  in  China.  A  little  Chinese  girl  prob- 
ably discovered  it  a  few  thousands  of  years  ago  when 
she,  under  a  mulberry  tree,  sat  playing  jackstones  with 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  87 

a  handful  of  cocoons.  And  a  Chinese  queen  gave  the 
infant  industry  her  patronage  and  her  labor,  cherished 
and  cultivated  the  silkworms,  planted  the  mulberry 
groves,  invented  the  loom.  And  for  centuries  the  royal 
women  of  China  tended  and  developed  the  cult  in  all 
its  branches — silkworm  farms,  dyeing,  weaving — until 
the  sericulture  that  began  in  one  royal  woman's  in- 
terest and  patriotism  became,  as  it  still  is,  the  imperial 
art  of  an  imperial  people. 

China  may  play  at  a  Republic,  may  masquerade 
as  a  democracy;  but  she  can  no  more  slough  her  an- 
cestry, or  permanently  betray  it,  than  she  can  roughen 
and  coarsen  the  imperial  fabric  of  her  silk  looms  by 
calling  it  "cottons  made  in  Manchester."  China  is  an 
Empire,  and  her  workmanship  and  her  silks  are  im- 
perial. 

No  other  silks  approach  them.  To  the  silks  of  China, 
the  silks  of  Japan  are  as  cheap  glass  is  to  jade. 

From  its  dawn,  women  have  been  as  potent  in 
China's  history  as  men  have.  And,  as  a  rule,  the 
greater  the  Emperor  the  greater  in  personality  and 
in  influence  have  been  his  mother  and  his  wife. 

The  Lady  of  Si-Ling — ^probably  one  of  the  three 
most  celebrated  Chinese  women,  the  wife  of  Huang-Ti, 
the  Emperor  who  reigned  in  China  twenty-six  cen- 
turies before  Christ,  and  who  was  the  arch-patron,  and 
in  many  ways  the  father,  of  Chinese  agriculture — gave 
the  first  great  impetus  to  the  silk  industry  of  China. 
She  grew  mulberry  trees,  and  encouraged  the  people 
high  and  low  to  do  so.  She  studied  and  improved 
the  rearing  of  the  worms,  and  the  reeling  of  the  silk. 
She  herself  invented  the  loom  and  perfected  it  for  the 
patterned  weaving  of  the  beautiful  silken  webs,  which 
were  sold  for  more  than  their  weig^ht  in  gold,  not  only 


88  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

in  Persia  and  in  India,  but  in  distant  luxury-loving 
Greece.  She  gave  her  personal  time  an  i  the  work  of 
her  own  hands  to  the  lovely  industry,  as  has  almost 
every  Chinese  Empress  since.  Even  the  famous  Dowa- 
ger Empress  of  our  day — the  most  libeled  woman  in 
history — found  time  to  tend  her  worms  and  use  her 
loom.  And  it  has  been  the  invariable  practice  of  the 
ladies  of  the  Chinese  Court,  the  women  of  the  no- 
bility, and  the  peasant  women  of  the  far-off,  far-scat- 
tered countrysides,  to  ply  regularly  some  part  of  the 
exacting  industry. 

Chinese  girls,  scantily  clad  that  they  may  be  ex* 
quisitely  sensitive  to  the  slightest  change  of  tempera^ 
ture,  watch  over  and  time  all  the  stages  of  the  silk- 
womi^s  Hfe.  From  the  time  the  first  worm  is  hatched 
until  the  last  has  spun  its  cocoon  they  require  skillful 
and  absolutely  unremitting  attention.  The  shed  must 
be  well  ventilated,  weatherproof,  and  in  every  particu- 
lar scrupulously  clean.  The  attendant  girls  must  be 
quiet,  cheerful,  gentle  and  even  in  their  movements, 
clean  in  person  and  sweet  of  breath.  They  must  live 
on  simple,  unscented  food.  One  strong  whiff  of  garlic 
will  ruin,  if  it  does  not  kill,  the  finer  silkworms,  and 
injure  the  coarsest.  The  silk  girls  may  live  on  honey 
and  rose  leaves  if  they  like,  but  they  must  never  eat 
onions  or  ginger. 

In  some  silkworm  houses — in  Sze-Chuen,  for  in- 
stance— for  greater  warmth,  the  best  cocoons  are  shel- 
tered in  her  own  bosom  by  the  attendant  girl,  and 
after  that  she  must  be  quiet  indeed.  There  are  nuns 
in  China,  holy  women  for  the  most  part,  leading  clois- 
tered lives,  but  their  daily  life  is  worldly  and  vibrant 
compared  to  that  of  the  silk-girls. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  89 

For  centuries  the  Chinese  guarded  all  the  secrets  of 
their  sericulture  well.  Even  yet  some  of  them  are 
closely  kept.  And  the  perfection  of  Chinese  manipu- 
lation cannot  be  approached. 

A  Chinese  Princess,  marrying  an  Indian  Prince,  car- 
ried in  the  lining  of  her  head-dress  silkworm  eggs  and 
mulberry  tree  seed  to  India,  and,  from  that,  silk  and 
silk  industries  spread  over  the  world. 

Ho-nan  is  not  a  province  of  the  richest  silks.  It  19 
the  province  of  wild  silk.  But  the  indefatigability  o£ 
Ch'eng  Yiin  had  wrought  miracle  in  the  sericulture  of 
the  estate.  Her  silks  were  noted  now,  and  not  even 
for  the  pleasuring  of  the  sainted  dead  would  she  risk 
the  welfare  of  her  pregnant  worms.  Besides  the 
flower-hung  break  in  the  wilderness  of  lamps  would 
give  relief  and  variety  to  the  eyes  of  the  spirits,  as 
to  their  nostrils;  and  it  would  make  an  oasis  and  a 
fragrant  sanctuary  for  the  outshone  fire-flies,  the 
**lamps-of -mercy"  that  lit  so  many  a  poor  pilgrim  on 
his  perilous,  candleless  path  across  the  steep  hillsides 
to  the  copper-roofed  temples  in  the  north,  and  the  fire- 
flies would  hang  their  own  festoons  of  jeweled  lights 
about  the  matted  roofs  of  che  thatched  palace  of  the 
worms. 

At  dusk  she  ordered  all  to  rice  and  sleep.  And  most 
of  her  servitors  did  sleep — dog-tired  from  her  cap- 
taining. 

The  day  broke  clear,  but  for  that  season  and  place, 
cold.  And  many  a  woman  shivered  as  she  hurried  at 
that  cold  moment  just  before  the  dawn  to  the  temple 
where  she  chose  to  pray.  The  temples  were  the 
women's  until  the  dials  and  the  water-clocks  warned 


90  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

the  approach  of  eight,  and  then  any  man  that  would, 
could  seek  a  god  without  risk  of  brushing  some  close- 
veiled  figure  as  it  flitted  back  from  prayer  to  rice. 

When  Ping-yang  and  Ting  Tzu  came  into  Ping's 
own  court-yard,  just  as  the  delicate  first  outriders  of 
the  sun  were  opaling  all  the  sky  with  molten  wisps  of 
rose  and  green,  they  saw  it  as  if  fairy  hands  had 
decked  it  in  the  night.  The  grass  was  widely  lozenged 
with  strips  of  silken  carpeting.  A  thousand  tiny  lan- 
terns hung — not  yet  lit,  of  course — about  its  house- 
enclosed  sides.  A  great  Ch'ien  Lung  vase  nearly  as 
tall  as  Ping-yang  and  chin-high  to  Ting  Tzu  stood 
near  the  Hoang  Ko  tree.  The  big  vase  was  full  to 
its  brim  with  attar,  wasting  in  pungent,  cloyed  sweet- 
ness a  fortune  in  the  air.  A  mat  of  woven  jessamine 
flowers,  pink,  lemon  and  white,  and  their  bright  gray- 
green  leaves  lay  before  the  vase.  An  open  book  and 
a  gemmed  and  silver  lute  lay  on  the  fragrant  mat. 
And  the  old  sundial  was  an  altar  with  a  throng  of 
worshiping  flowers.  For  unHt  tapers,  tiny  ivory  bells 
hung  circled  on  the  dial's  upmost  rim  making  soft 
music  ripples  of  tinkling  love  and  prayer  at  every 
slightest  pulsing  of  the  day's  fresh  breath.  And  on 
the  dial's  old  flat  face,  a  red  rose,  still  wet  with  dew, 
pointed  the  hour  when  the  great  glittering  procession 
would  form  and  pass  with  music  across  the  estate 
from  gate  to  gate,  circling  twice  the  lotus  lake. 

Ting  Tzii  bent  above  the  dial,  and  drank  the  roses* 
breathed-out  wine.  But  Nan  Tung,  sitting  stolid  a 
pace  away,  mending  a  shoe  of  Ch'eng  Ko's — though 
none  should  work  to-day — neither  looked  up  nor  spoke 
— and  neither  sister  questioned  her,  "Who  has  done 
this  thing?" — but  when  they  had  gone  out  through  the 
doorway  that  led  presently  to  the  dwellin^^^'s  door,  and 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  91 

Nan  Tung  saw  that  Ting  Tzu  had  dropped  a  bit  of 
honey-suckle,  she  went  and  picked  it  up — and  hid  it  in 
the  baby's  shoe,  and  hurried  through  another  door. 

By  seven  the  whole  domain  was  in  a  hum  of  merri- 
ment and  ecstasy.  Even  in  the  open,  great  bundles 
of  joss  sticks  burned  down  to  their  light  stems,  to  be 
replaced  by  others  before  they  went  out,  and  heaping 
all  the  grass  and  paths  with  little  hills  of  white  ash. 

Pageant  followed  sports,  and  sports  followed  pa- 
geant, all  day  long.  Every  one  munched  white  sugared 
mincemeat  balls,  and  every  one  was  glad  and  gay — 
and  there  was  no  silence  in  all  the  place  except  in 
the  acres  where  the  cocoon  sheds  stood.  But  it  was 
decorous  merriment,  with  an  added  courtesy  beyond 
the  quiet  courtesy  which  is  the  garment  and  the  nerve 
of  Chinese  daily  life — for  the  dead  were  here  to-day, 
threading  their  kindly,  silent  way  among  the  teeming 
human  things,  watching  and  enjoying  all.  It  was 
for  these  spirit  guests,  ancestral  and  honored,  that 
the  incense  burned,  that  no  grosser  man-smells  should 
by  any  chance  offend  the  nostrils  of  the  gracious  ghosts. 
Fire-crackers  crackled  out  in  fearsome  burst,  and 
drums  threatened  rattlingly — not  for  the  coarse  amuse 
ment  of  living  ears,  but  to  affright  and  drive  every 
evil,  prowling  entity  away,  lest  they  profane  the  pres- 
ence of  the  beloved  dead,  or  injure  or  annoy  them. 

Even  the  silkworm  girls  were  here,  in  glad-eyed 
relays.  Ah  Song  was  in  charge  of  the  worms  to-day, 
with  only  now  and  then  a  handful  of  girls  slipping 
in  noiselessly  to  see  if  all  was  well,  and  watch  with 
her  for  an  hour.  Ah  Song  cared  nothing  for  fes- 
tivities. 

Chii-po  was  very  brave  in  crimson  silk  and  pink 
flowered  brocade,  a  pouch  with  all  its  dangle  of  ac- 


92  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

companiments  swinging  from  his  girdle.  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiiin  had  made  and  embroidered  it,  and  had  contrived 
herself  the  dozen  pretty  nicknacks  bunched  with  it. 
Every  Chinese  dandy  wears  such  a  pouch  and  pretties, 
and  many  a  grave  graybeard.  And  always  it  is  the 
token  and  the  handwork,  of  mother,  sister  or  wife. 
In  his  tunic  a  great  green  diamond  blazed,  fastened 
across  the  stem  of  a  little  honeysuckle  spray.  And 
behind  him  walked  upright  Zo  Min-yii,  his  favorite 
bear,  halting  at  every  third  step  to  beg,  catching  for 
his  pains  one  of  the  sugared  mincemeat  balls.  It 
seemed  he  ate  a  thousand,  and  then  begged  for  one 
more.  But  even  a  Ho-nan  bear  can  have  enough,  and 
after  some  hours  of  gorging  he  heaved  a  gigantic  sigh, 
and  lay  down  on  the  path,  and  went  to  sleep,  for  cool- 
ness on  his  back,  all  his  shaggy  paws  stretched  up 
like  ill-shaped  steeples,  and  his  great  sugar-packed 
stomach  between  them  like  a  great  brown  onion  bulb. 
And  all  day  long,  feasting  and  procession,  juggling 
^nd  wrestling,  swerved  aside  from  where  he  lay,  yield- 
ing him  pride  of  place  with  a  good-natured  laugh. 

And  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  her  daughters  and  her  gttest, 
sat  in  a  great  pavilion  of  sandalwood  and  jasper,  and 
watched  the  fun — with  the  handmaidens  and  the  con- 
cubines sitting  at  their  feet.  And  when  the  ladies 
wearied  of  the  sport,  or  of  the  heat,  they  slipped  away 
into  one  of  a  group  of  tents  to  lie  and  rest,  sip  iced 
cups,  or  sweet  hot  wine,  gamble  a  little,  or  gossip  and 
eat. 

Every  woman  in  that  festal  multitude  carried  and 
plied  a  fan — as  did  most  of  the  children  and  many  of 
the  men — in  the  surging  humbler  folk  as  well  as  the 
"sash-wearers"  gathered  at  the  pavilion,  and  strolling 
xnore  leisurely  about  the  park-like  place.    All  Chinese 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  93 

garments  have  their  story  and  their  significance,  as 
well  as  their  beauty  and  their  use.  But  the  fan  has  be- 
come almost  a  part  sentient  and  actual  of  the  Chinese 
human  body — another  hand,  a  necessary  organ.  It  has 
written  Chinese  history,  and  has  marked  it.  It  has 
illuminated  Chinese  literature  for  centuries.  It  illus- 
trates Chinese  daily  life — the  eloquent,  time-honored 
Chinese  fan,  in  eloquent,  supple  conservative  Chinese 
hands.  And  every  woman  there  wore  in  her  hair  at 
least  one  stickpin,  blue-enameled  and  azure — encrusted 
with  the  precious  feathers  of  the  kingfisher — the  jewel- 
bird  of  China. 

A  quick  side-light  may  be  thrown  on  a  phase  of 
Chinese  life  not  always  accurately  understood  in  Eu- 
rope, by  one  small  incident  that  came  just  before  the 
great  hour  of  the  processional. 

"Who  was  that  girl  who  hurt  her  hand  on  Ch'eng 
To-jung's  wife's  stick-pin?"  Ch'eng  Hsu  said  to  his 
wife,  as  they  met  a  moment  near  the  pavilion.  "I  saw 
you  bind  her  finger  with  a  corner  of  your  scarf." 

"Oh,  that  is  Ma-wung,  your  number  three  con- 
cubine," she  told  him  carelessly.     "I  hke  the  girl." 

And  Ch'eng  Hsu  looked  as  little  interested  as  he 
was. 

With  the  dark  came  the  great  throbbing  hour  of 
all  the  festival:  the  procession  of  lanterns,  and  the 
carnival  of  fireworks. 

Ch'eng  Yiin  and  the  younger  ladies  watched  it  all 
from  a  little  fleet  of  lacquered  boats  floating  on  the 
bosom  of  the  lotus  lake.  The  men,  and  the  women 
and  children  not  of  Yiin's  party,  watched  from  every 
coign  of  vantage  on  the  shore.  Even  in  the  darker 
evening  time  the  sky  looked  velvet  blue,  speckled  with 
its  radiant  powdering  of  brilliant  stars.     From  every 


94  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

bough  of  every  tree  lanterns  hung,  lit  now,  that  tht 
ancestral  spirits  gathered  here,  moving  lovingly  about 
their  old  earth-ways,  might  have  light  to  see.  A  Chi- 
nese coolie  will  half  starve  himself  for  months  rather 
than  risk  the  spirits  of  his  ancestors  stumbling  in  the 
night-time  dark  of  the  Lanterns'  long  festival.  The 
tree-hung  lanterns  here  were  beautiful  and  odd,  no 
two  alike,  but  they  were  the  merest  utilitarian  at- 
tendants of  the  hundreds  of  masterpieces  of  the  pro- 
cession. 

No  English  words  could  half  describe  the  beauty 
of  that  festal  sight — probably  no  eyes  or  hearts  not 
Chinese  and  centuries-trained  see  it  quite.  The  night 
was  very  still.  The  stars  looked  very  far  and  pale — 
and  now  and  then  one  shot  across  the  sky  in  a  little^ 
rush  of  flame.  The  lantern  bearers  were  all  bravely 
clad,  happy  but  grave,  selfless  but  important  in  the 
meaning  of  their  task.  And  the  incense  smoking  up 
almost  imperceptibly  from  the  burning  sandalwood 
rose  like  a  warm  mist  in  the  quiet  evening  air.  Twenty 
little  boys  came  first,  each  carrying  two  swaying  cen- 
sers of  gauzy  lanterns.  Then  a  long,  slow  moving 
stream  of  older,  sturdier  youths.  Here  one  walked 
alone  to  better  show  the  beauty  of  some  special  paper 
lamp.  Others  came  abreast  in  twos,  in  threes — and 
wider  ranks.  No  flower  grows  in  all  great  China  that 
was  not  mimicked  by  lanterns  of  gauze  or  silk.  Every 
lantern  was  hand-painted  by  a  master's  hand — except 
here  and  there  one  wonderfully  embroidered.  Many 
of  the  lovely,  swaying  lights  were  so  heavy — for  all 
their  fragile  surfacing — that  they  must  be  slung  on 
long,  stout  bamboo  poles  resting  on  the  shoulders  of 
two  men  or  more.  Some  were  fashioned  of  tissue 
so  delicate  that  it  scarcely  was  visible,  showing  the 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  95 

candles  within  clearly  cut,  and  the  paintings  on  the 
gauze  seemed  to  ride  unsupported  through  the  air. 
Some  were  built  of  thick,  clear  silk  and  the  hidden 
candles  gave  out  a  soft  blurred,  opalescent  glow  as 
if  a  swarm  of  fire-flies  burned  within  alabaster  pris- 
oning. Every  fruit  of  Chinese  fact  and  fancy  had  its 
lantern  picturing.  Birds,  fish,  peacocks,  eagles  with 
wide  tigerish  eyes,  beasts  from  the  jungle,  tamed  ani- 
mals of  farmyard  and  barn,  spinning  wheels,  all  the 
lovely  leafage  of  long  bamboo  stems — and  the  East 
has  nothing  lovelier  than  its  bamboos — squirrels, 
cranes,  wolves  and  pretty  parti-colored  ducks,  inex- 
pressibly beautiful  clusters  of  wistaria  in  bud  and 
fuller  bloom,  oranges  and  orange  buds  and  flowers 
swinging  from  one  sweep  of  green-leaved  twisted 
stems,  melons,  pineapples,  cacti  in  flower,  great  grape 
clusters,  the  very  sight  of  which  might  have  made 
a  Bacchus  reel,  boats,  caravans,  old  warships,  state 
barges,  snow-topped  mountains  in  red  eruption,  every 
jewel  of  the  wide  world's  wealth  cut  into  some  ex- 
quisite shape,  temples,  gods,  warriors  and  dancing 
girls,  babies  in  their  tall  cradles,  stern  old  men  with 
flowing  beards  of  snow-white  flame — perhaps  the  tu- 
lips were  loveliest,  or  the  peonies,  perhaps  the  chrys- 
anthemums or  the  begonias,  or  blue  and  rose  lark- 
spurs, or  perhaps  the  little  humming  birds.  Many 
of  the  lanterns  were  vase-shaped,  picturing  for  the 
people  China's  wealth  of  porcelain  art — the  lovely 
but  least  of  her  fine  arts.  Of  the  more  intricate  and 
fantastic  lanterns,  many  were  made  with  such  ex- 
traordinary mastery  and  skill,  and  of  texture  so  deli- 
cate and  marvelously  balanced,  that  at  the  slightest 
touch  of  wind  they  shifted  into  other  shapes;  the 
rose  became  a  rose-pink  gull,  the  green-leaved  red 


96  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

tulip  a  green-leaved  cluster  of  dangling  cherries,  the 
gentian  flower  a  blue  swallow  in  proud  flight.  A  school 
of  kittens  seemed  to  play  at  ball.  Bears  pranced  and 
begged,  persistent  as  spoiled  children.  Great  fat  turtles 
sprawled,  and  green  lizards  crawled.  And  yet  the 
procession  had  but  begun. 

On  and  on  it  passed,  wending  its  slow  illumined 
way,  the  watchers  breathless,  silent  for  the  most  part, 
but  now  and  then,  when  something  of  special  beauty 
or  of  deeper  meaning  passed,  the  people  gave  a  great 
sigh  of  pleasure  or  of  sympathy — once  or  twice  a 
woman  sobbed — and  when  the  great  dragon  came,  a 
gust  of  feeling  swept  and  swayed  the  onlooking  ranks, 
as  a  wind  of  summer  hits  and  swings  the  swelling 
tassels  of  the  ripening  corn,  and  they  broke  into  a 
happy  whispering  of  song.  An  impassive  people!  A 
cruel  bestial  people!     And  inferior  to  the  Japanese! 

Hail  to  the  missionary !  And  to  the  incrawling,  in- 
breaking  European  throng!  China  needs  them  so,  to 
bring  her  civilization,  to  teach  her  the  art  of  living, 
of  which  all  other  arts  are  but  handmaids,  and  to 
give  her  soul! 

And  this  was  not  a  sudden  spurt  of  excess,  sump- 
tuousness  and  riot  expenditure  to  dazzle  a  visiting  man- 
darin, but  just  the  annual  home  festival  of  the  Ch'engs, 
m  welcome  of  the  home-coming  of  their  dead.  They 
had  kept  it  here  and  so  for  hundreds  of  years.  Not 
a  coolie  or  a  slave  girl  here  but  from  birth  or  pur- 
chase had  watched  it  every  year. 

The  dragon — the  Great  Dragon,  for  many  others 
had  gone  before  among  the  great  waxen  lilies  and  the 
flaming  trumpet-flowers — was  the  apex  but  not  the 
end  of  the  long  spectacle  of  beauty  and  of  feeling. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  97 

All  day  long  little  balloons  had  floated  in  the  noise- 
torn  air,  some  released  and  free,  hundreds  tethered 
to  the  glass  bracelets  on  almost  every  childish  wrist, 
or  string-held  by  little  yellow  hands.  From  many 
of  the  chubby  gas-filled  balls  dangled  Httle  delicate 
chimes  of  bells,  making  soft  music  as  they  went — just 
a  whisper  of  elfin  sound,  tinkling  down  sweetly  between 
the  pauses  in  the  fireworks'  holocaust  of  sound.  And 
when  the  darkness  grew  each  released  balloon  was  radi- 
ant with  an  increased  light,  or  with  a  coating  of  phos- 
phorus. And  all  day  long  occasionally  aircraft  had 
skimmed  through  the  ether.  For  airships  were  in- 
vented in  China  centuries  before  fanatic  inventors  or 
obsessed  patriotism  thought  of  them  in  Christendom. 
What  we  invent  and  acclaim  to-day,  China  did  cen- 
turies before  Britain  was  mapped  or  Europe  known, 
and  when  our  ancestors  waded  through  the  weed-thick 
marshes  of  Thorny,  wearing  woad  and  greasy  blue 
paint  or  less,  Chinese  science  mastered  the  air,  and 
refined  the  daily  life  of  China's  far-flung,  puissant 
peoples.  When  the  night  came,  the  aircraft  gliding 
overhead  showed  lights  of  rose  and  silver,  riding  like 
dolphin-birds  through  the  ocean  of  the  sky. 

A  thousand  illuminated  balloons  proclaimed  the 
Dragon's  approach,  and  a  great  air-bat,  flying  like  a 
winged  snake  of  green  diamonds,  heralded  it. 

But  when  the  Dragon  came,  the  children  forgot 
their  balloons  and  their  kites — the  daylight  had  been 
thick  with  kites,  free  and  held — and  the  pretty,  shin- 
ing toys  dragged  gas-spent  and  neglected  on  the 
ground. 

A  hundred  men — inconspicuously  clad  in  gray,  that 
the  splendid  monster  might  the  more  seem  independent 
of  them — carried  above  them  the  gorgeous  leviathan 


98  THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

that  seemed  to  sprawl  slowly  through  the  air  it3 
scaly,  horned  and  corrugated  sides. 

It  wriggled  like  a  fat,  supple  demon  as  it  went, 
Satanic  contortions  quivered  its  painted,  caved  and 
hillocked  sides.  Every  few  yards  it  turned  its  awful 
head,  oped  wide  its  terrible  jaws,  and  belched  out  on 
the  delighted  people  a  soft  mist  of  warm  perfum.e. 
The  people  squirmed  and  grinned  with  happiness  as 
the  fine  musk-scented  rain  showered  and  drenched 
them  with  sprays  so  fine  that  it  caressed  them  gently, 
and  scarcely  seemed  the  wet  it  was.  And  many  a  good 
gift  fell  with  the  rain  of  scent.  Of  all  those  gifts 
the  ruyie  were  most  prized — precious  little  emblems 
of  twisted  jade,  mascots  of  good  luck,  just  such  as  the 
Son  of  Heaven  himself  accepted  and  gave  on  his  birth- 
days in  imperial  Pekin.  And  the  youngsters  clutched 
joyously  the  sweetmeats  that  the  huge  writhing  mon- 
ster spat  them  as  it  went — sweetmeats  they  were  too 
happy  and  too  already- fed  to  eat,  each  sweetmeat  in- 
scribed or  embossed  with  a  beneficent  character  mean- 
ing "Peace,"  ^Telicity,"  "Good  Luck,"  "Fidelitv," 
"Great  Learning,"  "Health,"  "Longevity,"  or  "Gifted 
in  Art." 

Before  the  shining  Dragon  swung — tantalizing,  just 
out  of  his  reach — a  great  sheeny  pearl,  modeled  out 
of  tight-stretched  changeable  white,  rose  and  silver 
silk :  and  emblem  of  "The  Unattainable."  He  followed 
it.  He  snapped  at  it.  But  never  he  reached  it.  When 
he  hurried,  it  hurried.  When  he  almost  mouthed  it, 
it  just  escaped.     He  nearly  contrived,  it  just  evaded. 

When  the  great  Dragon  had  gone,  passing  out  of 
sight  on  its  long,  fiery  way,  a  troup  of  children — but 
old  enough  for  the  long  walk — came  carrying  armfuls 
of  fresh  flowers.    Then  youths  intoning  classic  poems. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS  99 

Then  actors,  dressed  for  their  parts,  reminded  all  that, 
though  the  greatest  day  of  the  great  festival  was  spent, 
the  morrow  held  great  treasure  in  her  womb — more 
games,  and  the  great  theatrical  event.  Last  of  all  came 
a  shy  band  of  vestal  girls,  delicately  clad,  singing  a 
good-night  hymn  of  sweet  repose. 

Each  succeeding  day  of  the  feast  dwindled  a  little 
from  its  day  before;  that  the  inevitable  and  salutary 
homespun  end  might  not  seem  abrupt  or  harsh.  But 
each  day  was  packed  with  pleasure  and  kindliness. 
And  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  slipped  away  to  the  last 
observance  and  the  last  indulgence  of  its  last  night^s 
last  hour. 

And  almost  as  the  day  broke  and  the  chill  wind  of 
coming  morning  whispered  them  "To  bed''  and  then 
'To  work/*  and  plucked  the  little  love  songs  from 
the  instruments  hanging  in  half  the  trees,  the  happy 
people  (the  ill-used  Chinese  people)  went — singing 
softly  as  they  went — weary  with  gladness  and  delight 
— contented  to  their  homes,  to  rest  a  few  hours  on 
their  mats,  sleep  if  they  could,  then  to  spring  up  at 
the  first  clap  of  the  "get-up"  cymbals,  refreshed  and 
inspired,  to  the  strenuous  daily  toil  which  is  the  back- 
bone of  Chinese  life,  and  is  half  of  Chinese  happiness. 

Ye  little  gods  of  Europe,  will  not  the  greater  Heaven 
itself  peep  through  the  blanket  of  your  petty  dark, 
and  bid  you  cease  your  busy-bodying  in  Asia,  and  heal 
the  sorrows  and  the  souls  of  your  own  peasantry  and 
cultured  working  class?  If  but  some  Power  would 
give  you  the  gift  to  see  yourselves  as  Asia  sees  you! 


CHAPTER  XIII 

TT  was  raining  ominously  when  the  train  moved 
-■■  away  towards  the  outer  gates.  Great  angry  clouds 
were  swooping  down  from  cold  Manchuria  like  angry 
beast-birds  of  prey.  The  flowers  were  shivering  on 
trembling  stalks,  and  the  fruit  shook  frightened  on 
the  quivering  trees.  The  coolies,  moving  busily  about 
the  place,  wore  their  ragged  rain-coats  of  long,  coarse 
grass — as  did  the  humbler  servants  of  the  departing 
Tings. 

But  Ch'eng  Chii-po  wore  still  a  gala  dress — robes 
almost  as  rich  and  gay  as  a  bridegroom  might  have 
worn.  He  stood  with  his  brothers  just  outside  the 
outer  door,  and  did  homage  with  them  as  the  man- 
darin's long  cavalcade  moved  away ;  it  would  have  been 
a  rudeness  to  his  mother's  guest  had  he  not  been  there. 
But  when  the  Tings  had  disappeared  behind  a  winding 
of  the  path,  and  his  brothers  turned  to  the  shelter  of 
the  house,  he  sped,  by  a  shorter  way  he  knew,  through 
the  rain,  to  where  he  had  stood  almost  a  moon  before 
— to  where  he  had  first  seen  the  face  of  Ting  Tzu. 
But  now  when  the  train  passed  by  on  the  road  below, 
he  stood  boldly  forth,  his  red  and  green  and  rose 
robes  shining  clearly  through  the  rain.  The  mandarin, 
not  minded  to  dismount,  though  indeed  that  extreme 
of  courtesy  was  not  his  obligation  to  one  so  mucn 
younger  and  of  lesser  rank — (the  old  man  was  riding 
on  hrs  palfrey,  defiant  of  the  storm) — but  highly 
pleased,  pretended  not  to  see  the  boy.     But  the  cur- 

100 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         loi 

taining  of  a  girl's  palanquin  parted  an  inch — perhaps 
in  answer  to  the  wind,  perhaps  in  scorn  of  the  rain 
— and  Ch'eng  Chu-po  knew  that  she  had  seen  and 
understood. 

And  when  hemo  longer  could  see  her  chair,  he  gath- 
ered up  his  long  heavy  robes,  and  ran  like  the  boy 
he  was,  taking^again  steep,  narrow,  short  cuts  he  knew, 
running  sometimes  where  there  was  no  path,  and 
scarcely  foothold,  until  he  reached  the  outer  gate, 
and  stood  waiting  there  when  the  long  cortege  came. 

And  this  time  Ting  Lo  dismounted  and  greeted 
young  Ch'eng  as  an  equal.  But  Chii-po  would  have 
none  of  that,  and  kot'owed  to  the  very  ground,  saying, 
"I  am  thy  slave."  And  Ting  raised  him  up,  and  em- 
braced him  lingeringly.  And  again  the  sun  came  out, 
the  storm  drew  back,  and  again,  as  Chii-po  held  the 
mandarin's  stirrup  and  served  him  at  his  mounting, 
Ting  Tzu's  curtains  parted  a  narrow  breadth. 

Then  they  went. 

And  in  a  pepul  tree  a  bird,  leaf -sheltered,  began  to 
sing. 

Ch*eng  Chii-po  sought  admittance  to  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiin,  and  she  gave  it  him. 

And  when  he  had  made  obeisance  to  her  three  times 
thrice,  and  had  said  to  her  all  the  due  ceremonial 
things,  saying  them  with  an  added  ceremony,  as  be- 
fitted the  grave  importance  of  his  errand,  and  too, 
because  he  had  come  to  force  her  august  hand,  and, 
as  he  sensed,  perhaps  to  hurt  the  older  heart  he  loved, 
he  knelt  down  and  clasped  his  hands  upon  her  knee. 

"When?"  he  said. 

"When?    When  what,  Chii-po?" 

"When  shall  she  come?" 


102        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"She  shall  not  come/'  his  mother  told  him  slowly 

Chu-po  rose,  and  stood  before  her  smiling,  but  def- 
erential still.  "What  fault  have  you  to  find,  my  hon- 
orable Mother?"  he  began. 

"With  the  girl?     None.'* 

"I  meant  not  to  ask  that,"  Ch'eng  Chii-po  said 
quietly,  "for  you  could  have  none.  The  honorable 
maiden  has  not  one.     But  with  the  marriage?" 

"Fault  enough,"  she  replied  briefly.  "And  I  have 
other  plans.  To-morrow  I  send  to  ask  the  hand 
of " 

"Listen,  my  Mother,"  he  interrupted  her — almost 
as  hideous  an  outrage  from  a  Chinese  son  as  if  he  had 
struck  his  mother's  face.  Ch'eng  Yiin  bit  her  lip,  and 
the  hot  blood  painted  all  her  face. 

"You  forget  yourself,  worm!  It  is  for  me  to  or- 
der, and  for  you  to  obey." 

"In  all  but  this.  And  I  do  not  forget.  In  all  but 
this  I  will  obey  you  while  we  live.  I  do  not  forget 
my  duty  or  your  years,  the  birth  you  gave  me,  or 
my  long  happiness  at  your  dear  side.  But  I  remember 
my  love." 

"Your  love!  Your  bastard  indecency,  you  mean," 
she  raved.  She  beat  the  air.  She  screamed  and  tore 
her  robe.  She  called  him  many  a  foul  name.  She 
would  have  heaped  abuse  upon  Ting  Tzu,  had  she 
dared.  But  even  in  her  insane  rage  she  dared  not — 
as  yet.  She  threatened  him  with  her  clenched  fists, 
as  if  she*d  strike  him  to  the  ground. 

And  Chii-po  stood  steadily  still  and  smiled. 

"Speak!  Answer  me!"  she  panted,  gasping  for  her 
spent  breath. 

"I  will  die  unmarried,  or  wed  Ting  Tzu,"  he  said. 

Then  she  forgot  everything  but  her  jealous  fury, 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         103 

and  she  hissed  out  a  foul  opprobrious  term,  and  linked 
it  to  Ting  Tzu. 

Ch'eng  Chu-po  went  proudly  to  the  door. 

*'Come  back/'  she  screamed. 

He  paid  no  heed. 

Shao  Yiin  rushed  after  him,  and  caught  him  roughly. 
"Stay  till  I  bid  you  go,  thou  base  reptile." 

*'Not  to  hear  one  rudeness  of  her."  And  he  flung 
Ch'eng  Yiin  gently  off. 

"I  will  have  thy  life,"  she  stormed,  and  the  tears 
were  pelting  down  her  cheek. 

"That  you  can  indeed  do,  lady,"  the  boy  said  gently. 
"Command  my  death,  and  I  will  instantly  obey.  But  I 
think,  O  Mother,  you  will  not  do  that." 

"I  will  have  you  tortured,   vermin." 

"It  is  within  your  power,  great  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 
And  I,  whom  you  bore  and  gave  your  breast,  am  help- 
less to  resist — as  helpless  as  when  you  suckled  me." 

"Out  of  my  sight,"  she  hissed. 

"Lady,  yes.    But  hear  me  first.    You  must." 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  sank  speechless  to  her  seat. 
"Must!"  from  a  son  to  a  mother!  Did  China  live! 
Was  Ho-nan  real? 

"I  think  you  will  neither  kill  nor  torture  me.  You 
are  angry " 

She  found  her  voice  at  that,  and  laughed,  "Angry 

— oh!  no,  I — I  am  thy "     (Her  anger  hissed  and 

choked  her.) 

— "But  I  think  you  could  not  live  to  know  the  sen- 
tence carried  out,  even  if  you  summoned  the  slaves, 
and  gave  them  order  for  it.  But — oh,  listen.  Mother 
— this  I  swear  to  you,  by  the  sacred  presence  within 
the  pink  walls  of  the  vermilion  palace  at  Pekin,  and  by 
the  crystal  tree  that  grows  above  the  holy  grave  in 


104        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Shantung,  by  all  the  honorable  ancestors  of  our  great 
house,  and  by  the  love  you  bore  me,  lady,  by  every 
time  of  all  the  thousands  that  you  have  laid  your 
hand  on  me  in  kindness,  unless  I  lift  the  red  veil  from 
the  face  of  Ting  Tzu,  I,  with  my  own  hand,  will  take 
my  hfe." 

This  was  their  hour  of  mutual  torture  and  of  mutual 
trial;  so  strained  that  neither  had  noticed  that  he  had 
spoken  her  name — something  a  Chinese  son  may 
net  do. 

Again  he  turned  to  go.  And  he  thought  that  Ch*eng 
Shao  Yiin  would  not  yield.  He  had  never  known  her 
yield. 

She  sat  and  watched  him  through  inscrutable  eyes. 
She  knew  that  he  would  keep  his  word. 

"Go,  then,*'  she  said,  speaking  quietly  again.  "Go. 
I  have  other  sons  and  grandsons,  too.  My  grave  will 
not  miss  thy  unfilial  worship." 

But  when  he  put  his  hand  upon  the  sliding  panel, 
which  was  the  room's  outer  door — "Chii-po!"  she 
sobbed,  "come  back  to  me,  varmint!" 

He  ran  and  caught  his  mother  in  his  strong  young 
arms.  She  threw  her  head  down  on  his  breast,  sobbing 
wildly  now,  and  he  sheltered  her  in  his  arms,  and 
comforted  her,  and  held  her  very  close. 

Ting  Tzu  had  won. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

T^WARF  trees  grow  in  China,  but  not  dwarf  souls. 
•*-^  Having  yielded — even  though  it  had  been  be- 
cause she  must — Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  did  it  magnificently. 
She  was  not  petty.  Venomous  in  anger,  revengeful 
even,  full  of  prejudice  and  arrogance  as  a  monkey  is 
full  of  mischief,  a  tyrant  from  ner  cradle  to  her  grave 
— and  T/hy  not — daughter  of  tyrants,  and  mother  of 
tyrants? — except  in  the  immediate  eruption  of  her 
rage,  or  under  the  lasting  bitterness — cold  and  merci- 
less— of  the  conviction  of  justice  outraged  or  trust 
betrayed — for  all  her  pranks  of  temper  and  airs  of 
sex,  she  was  not  petty,  and  would  no  more  condone 
a  meanness  of  her  own  than  one  of  friend  or  foe. 
Chii-po  had  beaten  her,  or  rather  Ting's  chit  of  a  girl- 
child  had,  and  after  her  first — and  last — shrill  out- 
break, she  took  her  first  defeat  like  the  true  queen 
thing  she  was ;  regally,  smilingly  and  graciously.  And, 
if  for  it  she  loved  Ting  Tzu  none  the  more,  she  did 
love  Chii-po  for  it  with  some  added  love,  for  it  fed 
further  her  great  pride  in  him. 

He  had  cowed  her  with  his  threat  of  suicide.  There 
is  nothing  a  Chinese  fears  or  deplores  more  than  a 
kinsman's  suicide.  Self-slaughter  dismays  them  not  at 
all.  Suicide  honors  the  self -slayer,  but  lays  an  ever- 
lasting ban  on  those  who  cause  it.  To  send  Chii-po 
to  the  execution  ground  would  have  been  simple  and 
stainless — could  she  have  done  it — even  to  have  sent 
him  the  cord  of  dispatch,  bidding  him  use  it,  was  think- 


io6        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

able,  for  that  would  have  made  the  slaughter  hers, 
not  his,  his  hand  but  her  instrument  conceded  to  his 
pride  by  her  charity,  conceded  for  his  blood's  sake. 
But  his  voluntary  suicide  would  have  heaped  a  shame 
upon  her  which  nothing  could  cleanse  or  redeem. 

The  very  threat  of  it  defeated  her.  And  her  defeat 
was  complete.  Well,  now  to  turn  it  into  triumph — 
like  the  great  lady  she  was — greatness  and  strength 
the  very  marrow  of  her.  Or,  at  least,  if  she  could 
not  trick  herself  to  feel  that  it  was  her  own  triumph, 
to  so  deck  it — her  sacrifice — that  she  should  trick  her 
world  and  following  into  thinking  it  so:  lier  act,  her 
wish,   her  triumph. 

And  Chii-po's  terrible,  stern  threat  had  told  her 
something  else,  had  convinced  her  of  more  than  her 
own  defeat.  It  told  her  that  he  indeed  belonged  to 
Ting  Tzu — that  his  soul  was  mingled  inseparably  in 
the  soul  of  the  girl,  his  heart  pulsing  in  Ting  Tzu's, 
and  that,  for  the  time  at  least,  they  were  wedded  al- 
ready. For  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  loved  Ch'eng  O, 
and  had  been  loved  by  Ch'eng  O,  and  she  knew 
what  the  big  love  was,  knew  its  purple  signs,  and 
that  when  it  mantled  so,  in  most  chance,  it  had  come 
to  stay. 

But  again  Ah  Song,  lying  on  the  mat  without  her 
door,  heard  her  sobbing  through  the  night. 

On  the  morrow  she  met  Chu-po  with  a  smile.  And 
she  dealt  with  him  then,  and  on  all  the  days  that  fol- 
lowed, with  a  tender  gayness  and  a  brave  gracious- 
ness  that  rang  hollow  only  to  blind  Ah  Song,  whose 
pathos  only  Ah  Song  knew,  and  of  all  others  none — 
but  Chu-po  suspected,  and  he  himself  but  half  sus- 
pected. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         107 

Chii-po  was  grateful,  and  he  clung  to  her  even  as 
he  had  never  clung  before  with  a  tenderness  and  a  def- 
erence and  a  leaning  on  her  that  were  like  a  little 
child's,  and  too,  manly  with  a  new-come  manliness. 

And  she  set  all  her  strength  and  all  her  exquisite 
wit  to  pleasure  him. 

Having  yielded  to  him  in  the  one  thing  supreme, 
a  smaller  woman  might  have  thwarted  and  girded 
him  in  a  thousand  little  things,  finding  so,  or  seeking 
to  find,  outlet  and  relief  for  a  sour  spleen  of  disap- 
pointment. And  Chii-po  would  have  accepted  it  with 
splendid  gentleness.  But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  not 
petty,  and  she  scorned  to  smirch  her  yielding  with 
any  seeming  pettiness. 

She  caressed  her  boy,  deferred  to  him,  invited  his 
caress  and  accepted  it  lovingly.  And  they  clung  to- 
gether through  all  the  days,  and  each  hour  tied  and 
bound  them  together  with  some  new  tendril  of  devotion 
and  gratitude.  She  thwarted  him  in  nothing.  And  he 
waited  her  pleasure  with  perfect  and  sunny  patience. 

Each  of  their  old  mutual  pastimes  they  took  up  to- 
gether again,  if  only  for  an  hour.  And  he  was  very 
gentle  with  his  mother,  for  he  knew  that  she  was  saying 
good-by — the  mother's  terrible  farewell  to  her  boy. 

What  she  felt,  he  sensed.  But  she  showed  it  not 
at  all. 

As  a  little  boy  it  had  been  his  chiefest  pleasure  tc 
watch  and  hear  her  call  the  birds.  And  for  him  she 
called  the  birds  almost  daily  now.  Many  Chinese  are 
gifted  so — especially  women.  The  Great  Dowager 
could  call  the  wild  birds  to  her  in  all  the  leafy  stretches 
of  the  Summer  Palace  grounds.  And  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiin  called  the  Ho-nan  wild  birds  to  her  when  she 
would.    Holding  up  a  long  wand  new-cut  from  some 


io8        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

young  tree,  and  fresh-peeled  of  its  tender  bark,  all  wet 
and  fragrant  with  its  sap,  she  would  call  out  a  bird- 
note  in  her  voice  of  utmost  music,  and  presently  the 
little  wild  bird  would  answer.  The  woman  called 
again,  and  presently  the  bird  came  down  and  perched 
shyly  on  the  wand,  Yiin  called  again.  The  bird  an- 
swered. And  after  a  time  it  fluttered  down  to  her 
hand,  and  let  her  hold  it  to  her  face.  In  part  this 
was  her  personal  magnetism.  In  part  it  was  the  ac- 
cumulated magic  ot  a  race  that  has  obeyed  for  count- 
less generations  Confucius'  commandment  to  "hurt  no 
living  thing/'  Ch'eng  Chii-po  never  tired  of  watching 
Ch'eng  Yiin  call  the  wild  birds — not  even  now  when 
half  of  his  soul  slept  from  his  mother,  dreaming  of 
Ting  Tzu. 

She  thwarted  him  in  nothing.  And  so  she  did  not 
delay  beyond  the  pause  that  Chinese  decency  and  the 
dignity  of  their  great  house  demanded  and  enforced 
— to  send  her  marriage  tenders  to  Ting  Lo. 

And  when  at  last — for  life's  greatest  function  takes 
long  in  China,  moves  slow — Ting  Tzu  came  with  clash 
of  gongs  and  panorama  of  cortege  to  her  bridegroom, 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  received  her  with  tender  kindness. 

Even  in  China  marriage  was  not  often  so  splendidly 
performed.  Picture  followed  picture — pomp  crowded 
pomp.  A  thousand  perfumes  reeked  among  a  thou- 
sand glittering  lights.  Ten  thousand  flowers  nodded 
rosy  welcome  to  the  red-veiled  girl,  twice  ten  thou- 
sand blossoms  heaped  before  her  binded  feet.  Jest 
followed  ceremonial,  song  followed  prayer.  No  one 
on  all  the  vast  estate  did  any  work  except  in  service 
of  the  bride.  Ch'eng  Ko  ran  unregarded  riot  un- 
rebuked.    Almost  the  silkworms  were  forgotten. 

They  carried  Ting  Tzii  to  him  in  a  procession  that 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        109 

stretched  in  color  and  gorgeousness  more  than  a  mile. 
She  sat  alone  in  her  bridal  chair,  trembling  a  little 
within  the  gauze  shelter  of  her  red  wedding  veil ;  eager 
but  frightened  to  reach  her  long  journey's  end,  and 
to  reach  the  very  presence  of  Chii-po.  Motherless, 
she  grieved  to  have  left  her  first  home,  and  grieved 
bitterly  to  part  from  the  father  who  had  both  fath- 
ered and  mothered  her  through  all  her  tender,  cher- 
ished years.  Happier  than  most  Chinese  girls  so 
carried  in  their  **flowery"  chairs,  in  knowing  that  her 
red  veil  would  not  be  lifted  from  her  pretty,  painted 
face  by  a  to-be-hated  bridegroom — still  she  felt  a  lit- 
tle cheated  by  that  very  surety  and  the  absence  of  sus- 
pense. Like  all  her  race  a  gambler-born,  lifers  biggest 
gamble  was  robbed  for  her  of  some  of  its  palpitating 
zest  by  her  knowing  something  of  the  man  to  whom 
they  were  carrying  her,  and  too  she  felt  some  social 
damage — slight  but  acute  and  real,  in  having  been  seen, 
even  though  through  no  fault  of  her  own,  before  their 
marriage  by  the  man  upon  whose  favor  all  her  future 
happiness  must  depend.  Would  he  ever  in  all  the  long 
years  to  come  hold  her  less  dear,  even  a  little  less 
worthy  for  it?  She  shuddered  miserably  at  the 
thought,  and  lifted  her  veil  to  study  yet  once  more 
her  face  in  the  jewel-circled  mirror  of  polished  steel 
into  which  she  had  already  gazed  anxiously  a  thou- 
sand times  since  they  had  carried  her — sobbing  and 
struggling — through  her  father^s  door,  and  packed  her 
like  some  very  precious  bundle  into  her  red  and  gilded 
palanquin — sobbing  and  struggling,  but  doing  it  care- 
fully not  to  crack  her  nuptial  paint,  or  disarrange  the 
dangling  headings  of  her  crown,  or  crush  or  tear  any 
atom  of  all  her  splendid  yards  of  bridal  finery.  It 
had  been  her  duty  to  sob,  protest  and  struggle.    And 


no        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

she  had  done  it  well — for  she  was  dutiful  and  very 
proud  of  all  the  traditions  of  her  race  and  caste,  as 
proud  and  careful  as  Ch'eng  Yun  herself.  But  it  had 
been  her  privilege  to  keep  herself  looking  nice — and 
she  had  done  it  to  a  miracle. 

The  mirror  was  reassuring,  and  the  face  reflected 
in  it  cleared. 

It  was  not  a  light  disc  to  hold,  and  her  little  fingers 
were  almost  crippled  with  a  barbarous  weight  of  rings 
and  nail  protectors.  Reluctantly  she  laid  the  clear 
steel  down,  and  leaned  back  again,  sighing  a  little,  in 
her  chair — and  fell  to  dreaming  of  Chii-po — and  the 
hour  to  come. 

The  looking-steel  had  reassured  her,  and  her  think- 
ing of  Chii-po  was  reassuring  too.  It  was  a  catas- 
trophe to  have  looked  into  his  eyes  already,  and  a 
damage  too  of  her;  she  did  not  blink  that — could  not. 
But  the  eyes  had  been  kind.  And  she  had  seen  love 
in  them :  such  ardor  and  petition  of  love  that  no  girl, 
even  any  one  of  all  the  denser  races,  could  have  failed 
to  read  it  or  to  recognize  it.  Chii-po  loved  her.  She 
knew  it.  Could  she  hold  that  young  love,  making  it 
the  flower  and  perfume  even  of  her  old  age?  She 
sighed  quickly,  but  not  too  unhappily — for  her  father 
had  told  her  that  Ch'eng  Chii-po  came  of  a  loyal,  con- 
stant clan,  Ping-yang  had  said  it  too — and  surely  she 
knew,  for  she  lived  among  them,  and  they  had  an 
aunt  whom  Tzii  much  resembled,  who  was  lovely  still 
at  the  great  age  of  fifty,  and  probably  she — Tzu— ' 
would  bear  him  sons,  and  within  her  crimson  robes  she 
wore  an  amulet  the  old  witch  woman  had  given  her 
at  home,  a  charm  to  chain  forever  a  husband's  love. 

She  wished  she  had  not  been  seen  by  her  lord — so 
unfortunately  preseen — that  was  far  more  calamity 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        in 

than  that  she  had  seen  him.  It  would  have  been  a 
dehghtful,  heartbeating  business  to  be  going  to  him 
knowing  nothing  of  him  or  of  his  features.  But  what 
she  already  knew  was  reassuring.  And  probably  she 
would  find  still  some  surprise  in  m.arriage  and  in  her 
years  of  wifehood — where  happier  girls  found  nothing 
else. 

She  had  seen  Ch'eng  Chii-po.  She  had  read  his 
heart.  He  had  laved  her  with  his  desire.  And  to  its 
demand  her  own  heart  had  gone  quick  and  warm.  And 
of  all  the  smaller  things,  that,  as  she  knew,  made 
up  so  much  more  of  daily  life  and  rice-side  felicity, 
she  had  learned  of  him  from  the  courtyard  gossip 
and  from  busy-tongued  Ping-yang  all  that  could  be 
told. 

Ting  Tzu  leaned  back  against  her  perfumed  cush- 
ions smiling  to  herself  and  dreaming  rosy,  quivering 
dreams. 

"Ch'eng  Tzu,"  she  whispered  to  herself,  and  then 
beneath  her  paint  she  blushed  redder  than  her  veil. 

Then  bells  clanged.  Ten  thousand  crackers  splut- 
tered out  their  sharp  poppings.  Incense  puffed  in 
through  the  curtains  of  her  litter.  Tom-toms  clashed 
and  tore  the  silence  to  a  thousand  shreds  of  noise. 
Wild  music — ^wild  and  wilder — bleated  beside  the  paths. 
They  were  carrying  her  more  slowly  and  more  proudly 
now.  And  she  must,  she  knew,  have  reached  the  outer 
gate. 

She  clutched  the  talisman  within  her  robe.  Kwang 
Yin  grant  that  she  should  keep,  while  she  lived,  her 
lord's  love! 

Ting  Tzu  was  trembling  newly  now,  and  her  heart 
beat  wild  and  sick. 


112        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

It  seemed  an  endless  way  now — and  yet  too  short. 

They  set  her  down. 

She  heard  her  father's  voice.  She  thought  he  spoke 
her  name. 

Then  silence  came. 

A  quick  foot  pressed  to  her  chair. 

A  man's  hands  parted  her  curtains,  and  lifted  her 
up  into  a  man's  arms. 

She  was  trembling  violently  now — no  need  to  pre- 
tend reluctance — and  as  Ch'eng  Chu-po  carried  her 
reverently  across  the  threshold,  lifting  her  athwart  the 
marriage-fire  burning  on  the  door-step,  not  speaking 
to  her — yet,  but  for  all  that  sending  her  a  message  and 
a  comforting  as  he  bent  his  head  to  hers,  she  thought 
her  heart  had  lost  a  beat. 

And  Ch'eng  Chii-po  thought  so  too,  and  he  felt  her 
cold  within  her  robes,  and  felt  the  fluttering  of  her 
sweet  girl-flesh — and  it  ran  racing  through  his  veins. 

At  last  they  were  alone. 

She  was  his  wife. 

The  interminable  ceremonies  were  done. 

The  night  was  coming  near. 

They  stood  alone — life's  greatest  sacrament  at  their 
lips — together  and  alone  in  the  garnished  room  that 
was  to  be  the  inner  sanctuary  of  all  their  wedded  life. 

The  husband  lifted  his  wife's  crimson  veil  and  threw 
it  from  her  face. 

For  a  time  they  stood  so — she  swaying  a  little  orr 
her  tiny  feet — he  clenching  his  hands  in  a  desperate, 
generous  attempt  at  self-control. 

Of  the  two  he  was  trembling  the  more  now. 

But,  when  at  last,  she  looked  piteously  up  to  him,  he 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         113 

<5miled  down  at  her  with  tender  gentleness.  But  the 
trembling  of  his  young  lips  betrayed  the  tumult  within 
— but  his  voice  was  very  quiet — when  presently  he 
spoke  to  her. 

''Ch'eng  Tzu,"  he  said  slowly,  "Cheng  Tzu!" 

"My  lord,"  she  whispered — when  she  could. 

He  took  her  hand  in  his — scarcely  touching  it — at 
first. 

Her  little  hand  was  icy  cold.  But  it  warmed  quickly 
in  his  clasp — and  then  Chii-po's  tender  touch  grew 
bolder — not  less  kind,  not  less  considerate,  and  grasped 
Tzu's  Httle  fingers  in  a  joyous  vice. 

The  room  was  garnished  for  this  hour.  New  mats 
of  silky  rice-straw  strewed  the  lacquered  floor.  One 
— just  one — great  branch  of  sweet  flowering  jessamine 
leaned  from  an  ivory  bowl.  One  picture  hung  on  a 
wall.  One  sentence  of  good  import  was  written  on 
one  wall-hung  scroll.  And  near  the  window  through 
which  the  fragrant  garden  stretched  stood  a  great  vase 
of  flambe  Ch'ien  Lung  ware.  It  was  the  same  vase 
that  had  stood  till  now  in  the  courtyard  of  Ch'eng 
Ting  Ping-yang.  And  even  in  her  new  confusion 
Ch*eng  Ting  Tzu  knew  it,  and  knew  too  why  it  was 
here — why  her  lord  had  wished,  willed  and  con- 
trived it. 

She  smiled  at  it.    She  could  not  smile  at  him — ^yet. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  caught  Tzii  to  him  with  fumbling 
hands,  and  poured  out  to  her  an  ecstasy  of  halting, 
pelting  and  compelling  words. 

It  is  not  so  that  Chinese  girls  expect  to  be  wooed. 
Ch'eng  Chii-po  knelt  at  her  feet.  He  laid  his  hand 
in  entreaty  on  her  shoe.  She  looked  down  and  giggled 
shyly.     He  half  rose  and  clasped  her  knee,  and  drew 


114        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

her  down  to  him,  and  held  her  so.  And  they  sat 
together,  his  arms  about  her,  so  leaning  against  the 
great  Ch'ien  Lung  vase — happy  and  shy  as  two  chil- 
dren in  a  new-found,  sudden  intimacy  that  was  very 
sweet. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  marriage  throve. 
For  they  had  gone  unspoiled  to  it,  the  boy 
and  the  girl,  and  both  were  true  and  lovable:  two 
children  growing  up  together  in  harmony  and  trust. 

And  such  is  Chinese  marriage  as  a  rule.  The  new 
ideal  of  marriage  that  Europe  is  finding  to-day — 
urged  by  bishop  and  scientist,  philosopher  and  race 
philanthropist,  in  desperate  anxiety  for  our  man-sex, 
and  in  hope  for  the  future  of  our  race — and  a  new  wis- 
dom that  red-handed,  sad-eyed,  wide-eyed  war  has 
taught,  and  urges — China  has  held,  and  has  held  to, 
for  centuries.  When  the  marriage-need  comes,  the 
marriage  is  there.  The  marriage-opportunity  heaps 
young  lives  with  happiness,  content  and  health,  and 
makes  of  appetite  a  sacrament  and  not  a  nameless 
lust,  a  wholesomeness  and  not  a  disease,  an  innocence 
and  not  a  sore — makes  human  birth  as  sweet,  as  nat- 
ural and  as  welcome  as  the  birth  of  the  flowers  that 
bud  in  the  sheltered  leafage  of  sunny  spring. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  thought  her  young  husband  more  god- 
like and  more  manly  than  any  other  of  all  earth's  men 
— because  she  had  no  knowing  of  any  other  man. 

Ch'eng  Chii-po  gave  his  first  passionate  caress  to 
the  girl  at  whose  feet  he  knelt  on  their  marriage  eve- 
ning, and  he  adored  his  wife — because  he  had  frit- 
tered away  no  part  of  love's  outer  garments. 

Neither  had  had  earlier  loves — or  even  love-pass- 
ages— ^with  which  to  compare  this  anointed  love  of 

"5 


ii6        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

theirs  (perhaps  to  find  the  new  and  lawful  lacking  in 
some  phase  or  lure) — and  so,  were  absorbed  in  it, 
and  he  in  her  as  she  in  him. 

And  when  they  knew  that  a  babe  was  to  come,  all 
the  jealous  bitterness  went  from  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin's 
heart,  and  she  loved  Ch'eng  Tzu  as  her  own.  And 
waiting  for  the  baby's  birth,  they  three  were  almost  as 
one. 

After  the  interruption  of  marriage  negotiations  and 
long  ceremonial,  Yiin  took  up  her  own  life  again 
vigorously,  and  faced  solitude  grimly — hiding  her  jeal- 
ousy beneath  a  feverish,  imperious  industry.  But  Ah 
Song  sensed  how  it  rankled,  and  knew  that  beneath  all 
her  stern,  driving  rush  and  fuss  of  daily  things,  Ch'eng 
Yiin  was  waiting  scornful  but  tortured  for  Chii-po  to 
come  back  to  her. 

Chii-po  never  did  come  back — in  the  old  full- 
ness. Ch'eng  Tzii  filled  his  being.  But  soon  he 
sought  his  mother's  companionship,  claimed  her  advice 
about  many  things;  and  Tzii  crept  into  the  older 
woman's  heart,  slowly  at  first — but  the  girl  won  upon 
the  woman  day  by  day,  the  more  easily  and  the  more 
surely  because  from  the  first  Tzii  had  loved  Ch'eng 
Yiin. 

And  all  went  well  with  them. 

Scarcely  a  silkworm  ailed  that  year.  Scarcely  a 
rice  grain  withered  or  mildewed.  And  the  great  birth- 
hour  raced  with  the  Feast  of  Lanterns. 

Tzii  thought  the  Feast  would  outstrip  the  little  child. 
Ch'eng  Yiin  thought  her  grandchild  would  be  there 
first.     And  the  two  women  made  a  jeweled  bet. 

But  neither  won  it. 

It  was  so  sweet  to  carry  her  child — her  child  and  her 
lord's — beneath  her  girdled   heart  that   Ch'eng  Tzii 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         117 

was  not  impatient  for  its  birth;  even  perhaps  she  was 
a  Httle  reluctant  to  share  it  just  yet  with  any  other 
love  and  hands  but  hers,  reluctant  even  to  share  it 
with  the  wide-eyed  flowers,  or  the  sun  and  air  of  day. 

But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  all  impatience.  She  could 
scarcely  wait.  For  she  knew  that  at  last  a  girl  child 
was  to  be  bom  to  them:  the  fabled  daughter  of  the 
Ch'engs — maiden-minister  of  China— sweetest  flower 
of  Han. 

Every  augury  proclaimed  it  a  girl.  And  so  did 
every  wise  woman  on  the  place. 

But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  little  use  for  such  prophe- 
cies. They  had  failed  her  too  often.  But  in  herself, 
with  all  her  soul,  she  knew  this  was  a  girl.  She  had 
MO  smallest  doubt  of  it. 

Just  as  the  first  lantern  was  lit  the  child  was  bom. 

It  was  a  boy. 

Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu  tried  not  to  be  glad. 

And  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  fell  into  a  frenzy  that 
threatened  her  arrogant  life.  When  ^Ti-^to-ti  came 
fawning  to  her  for  a  sweetmeat  she  kicked  the  little 
loving  thing  away.  And  scarcely  any  dared  approach 
or  speak  to  her  save  only  Ah  Song.  Ah  Song  watched 
her  shrewdly  through  the  sightless  eyes  that  saw  so 
much  more  than  others'  eyes  could  see,  and  when 
Ch'eng  Yiin's  enraged  disappointment  had  a  little  worn 
its  fury  out,  spent  and  dashed  itself  to  pieces  against 
the  hard  rock  of  the  proud  woman's  splendid  spirit, 
blind  Ah  Song  told  her  that  lord  Chii-po's  lady  was 
very  ill  of  body — dying  perhaps,  and  tormented  and 
soul-crushed  because  instead  of  the  so-hoped-for  girl, 
a  mere  man  child  had  come  to  her  swelling  breast. 

At  that  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  tidied  her  disheveled  hair, 
shook  out  her  twisted  garments,  loaded  herself  with 


ii8        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

gems,  and  hurried  to  congratulate  and  to  console 
Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu.  And  she  carried  with  her  an  arm- 
ful of  red  roses  and  great  scarlet  hibiscus  flowers. 

It  was  a  very  tender  face  the  woman  bent  over  the 
pale  young  mother  thing,  lying  with  the  wee,  new- 
come,  red  and  buff  mauling  crooked  in  one  dimpled 
arm — for  Yiin  remembered  her  own  chagrin  and  suf- 
fering in  such  self -same  hours,  and  forgot  her  own 
selfish  disappointment  as  all  her  big  womanly  heart 
went  out  in  sympathy  to  the  girl  who  had  borne  the 
Ch'engs  another  boy. 

Ch'eng  Tzu — coached  by  Ah  Song — lay  very  still, 
and  tried  to  look  miserable. 

"It  is  only  a  boy,"  she  whispered  with  a  sob. 

*'Chut,"  Yiin  told  her  sharply,  but  proudly  too, 
''forget  all  the  folly  I  talked.  I  was  mad.  Thank  all 
the  gods  it  is  a  man."  And  she  kot'owed  to  the 
unconscious  babe.  When  had  that  proud  thing 
kofowed  before?  "See!"  holding  out  her  flowers. 
And  moving  about  the  room,  she  decked  it  with  the 
red  roses  and  the  great  crimson  hibiscus  flowers — 
chamber  of  birth  and  triumph! 

And  Ch'eng  Chii-po  breathed  softly  a  sigh  of  secret, 
great  relief.  He  had  greatly  feared  that  for  the  bear- 
ing of  a  boy,  his  mother  would  hate  Ch'eng  Tzu.  But 
he  need  not  have  feared  it.  Dwarf  trees  grow  in 
China  but  not  dwarf  souls. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  pretended  to  be  delighted  with 
her  grandson,  to  think  him  more  precious  than  any 
jade,  the  flower  of  all  the  jades,  and  to  love  him  as 
she  had  neve^r  loved  before. 

And  before  Ch'eng  Lo  Yuet — for  so  they  named 
him — was  a  week  old,  she  did.  And  the  Wealth  God 
was  lifted  up  from  the  ignominious  dust,  repedestaled 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         119 

and  given  yet  another  coat  of  finest  gold-leaf  from 
shoe  to  shaven  poll,  given  a  big  blazing  sapphire  of 
price  to  dangle  in  his  tinsel  crown.  And  often  Yuet's 
grandame  would  fight  his  mother  for  the  holding  of 
him,  nursing  him  for  hours,  and  crooning  to  him  old 
lullabies  she  had  not  sung  since  Ch'eng  O  had  died — 
and  h^d  thought  not  to  sing  again. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ALL  this  time  Ch*eng  Shao  Yiin's  purpose  to  banish 
"Chii-po,  to  sacrifice  him  and  her  own  heart  to 
China,  had  neither  slept  nor  sagged. 

And  when  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  was  passed  his 
mother  sent  Ch'eng  Chii-po  to  England — sorrowing 
but  obedient.  Nor  was  he  altogether  unwilling;  for 
he,  too,  saw  now  the  peril  gathering  over  China — 
sensed  the  big  white  bear  that  lumbered  on  her  from 
the  Russ  land,  heard  the  swords  sharpening  in  every 
garden  in  Japan,  treachery  boiling  up  in  Korea,  rapac- 
ity and  avarice  scheming  in  half  the  chancelleries  of 
Europe. 

And  when  the  time  came  to  go,  he  went  with  an 
unmoved,  if  a  mask-like,  face.  And  the  two  women 
who  loved  him  most  drew  close  together — a  new  friend-, 
ship  linking  them,  and  Ch'eng  Lo  Yuet  cradled  in 
their  arms. 

The  years  passed  slowly  for  the  women  waiting  for 
his  return  in  the  teeming  Ho-nan  home. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  bore  it  best — partly  because  it 
was  her  temper  to  bear  all  heavv  things  so — little  frets 
she  never  bore — partly  because  of  a  daily  growing 
infatuation  for  little  Yuet — a  lovely  child  with  Ch'eng 
O's  eyes  and  her  own  splendid  indomitable  temper, 
delicately  cloaked  with  the  pretty  silken  manners  of 
Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu. 

Several  sorrows  fell  upon  Yun  in  those  slow  years 
of  Chii-po's  long  absence. 

120 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        I2i 

Each  year  she  grew  more  anxious  for  her  country. 

Smallpox — always  China's  scourge — swept  down 
across  the  Fu-niu  Shan  range,  and  devastated  half  a 
village. 

Again  it  came — and  left  Ping-yang  a  childless 
widow. 

Yun's  second  son,  journeying  at  her  command 
with  a  message  to  Pekin,  was  caught  in  the  whirling 
rapids  of  the  Hwang  Ho,  and  China's  turgid  yellow 
sorrow  had  robbed  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  of  another  son 
and  of  that  son's  sons,  for  at  her  wish  they  had  gone 
with  him  to  see  something  of  the  old  capital,  and  to 
make  first  obeisance  at  the  footstool  of  their  Liege. 

One  by  one  death  reaped  her  golden  grain  of  life 
and  hope  till  none  of  her  bearing  were  left  her  but 
those  that  she  had  given  away  into  adoption,  and 
Chu-po  in  England,  and  Clm-po's  son  clinging  to  her 
hand  now  as  once  Chii-po  had  done.  Such  family-out- 
wiping  is  scarcely  rare  in  China. 

She  bore  it  all  with  proud  quiet — ^holding  Yuet's 
hand  the  closer,  scarcely  letting  him  out  of  her  sight, 
and  sending  long  letters  more  and  more  often  to 
Ch'eng  Chii-po. 

He  would  have  returned  to  her  now;  and  craved 
it,  but  she  forbade  it,  commanding  him  to  stay  until 
his  task  in  England  was  done. 

Only  a  woman,  and  a  Chinese  woman,  and  passing 
rich  at  that,  could  have  outplanned  the  elaborate  fes- 
tivities that  had  marked  the  marriage  of  Ch'eng  Chu- 
po  and  Ting  Tzu. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  did  it  for  the  home-coming  ol 
Chii-po. 


122        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

And  h^  came  at  last — slowly — in  state — carried  in 
an  endless  cortege  of  grief. 

Cholera  had  caught  him  at  Hong  Kong,  and  he  had 
died  there. 

It  killed  Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu — snapped  her  radiant 
life  off  as  some  sudden  gust  of  storm  might  have 
snapped  the  slender  stem  upon  which  a  lovely  blossom 
grew.  And  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  and  Yuet  were  left 
alone. 

Waiting  to  be  newly  wooed,  and  newly  a  bride,  the 
black  news  cut  through  Tzu  like  a  knife.  She  caught 
her  hand  to  her  heart,  gave  her  child  a  look,  and  heaped 
down  on  the  ko'tang  floor  at  Yiin's  feet. 

If  her  pain  had  been  intense,  its  torture  was  brief. 
She  died  as  she  fell. 

They  buried  her  with  him— buried  them  on  the  very 
spot  where  he  had  seen  her  first. 

The  family  burying  ground  lay  farther  north.  But 
on  the  day  that  he  had  left  them,  Chii-po  had  told  his 
mother  that  it  was  there  he'd  pray  to  be  laid  when  his 
time  came  to  be  a  guest  on  high.  And  his  wish — 
remembered  now — weighed  with  Ch^eng  Yun  far  more 
than  any  command  of  Feng-shui,  had  Feng-shui 
ordered  it  otherwise.  But  Ah  Song  wailing  about  the 
courtyard — waiHng  in  a  human  grief,  but  seeming  too, 
half  in  trance — cried  out  that  the  hillock  near  the 
stream  was  gods-decreed  for  the  burial  of  lord  Ch'eng 
Chu-po;  and  then  the  necromancers  hurriedly  found 
it  so. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  showed  no  grief.  And  only  blind 
Ah  Song  understood — and  knew  Ch'eng  Yiin's  grief 
was  too  great  to  be  shown  or  seen.  Only  the  sightless 
eyes  of  the  old  seer  and  slave  had  sight  to  see  that 
agony.     And  only  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  and  Ah  Song 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         123 

tnew — or  suspected — ^that  Chii-po's  mother  was  newly 
jealous  of  Chii-po's  wife — jealous  because  Ch'eng  Tzu 
lay  coffined  at  Ch'eng  Chu-po's  feet. 

Yiin  built  a  paifang,  in  honor  of  Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu, 
across  the  path  between  the  still  river  and  the  new 
graves,  holding — and  admitting — so,  to  all,  that  being 
slain  by  the  mere  word  of  her  lord's  death  proved  the 
devotion  of  Ch'eng  Tzu  as  clearly  as  if  the  girl  had 
hung  herself  beside  his  corpse. 

Yiin  gave  little  Ch'eng  Lo  Yuet  two  loves  now-— 
the  love  that  she  had  borne  him  already  and  with  it  all 
her  love  that  had  been  Chii-po's. 

Yiin  lived  and  had  her  being  for  Lo  Yuet — and  for 
China :  always  for  China.     China  first  of  all ! 

And  what  had  been  a  sacrificial  purpose  before 
became  an  obsession  now.  And  she  would  not  be 
balked  of  it.  The  more  her  love  of  her  grandson 
the  sterner  her  resolve  to  send  him  from  her.  Ch'eng 
Lo  Yuet  should  go  to  England,  as  his  father  had  gone 
— and  should  return  and  live,  as  that  father  had  not, 
to  work  and  win  for  China. 

She  had  promised  a  son  to  China.  And  no  accident 
so  small  as  death  should  rob  China  of  the  gift,  or  her 
herself  of  the  completed  sacrifice. 

And  surely  China's  need  grew  sore.  Already  war 
threatened  concerning  Korea.  The  big  white  bear 
stretched  out  its  taloned  paws.  Theft  dared  to  turn 
its  covetous  Christian  eyes  even  on  the  sacred  grave 
where  the  crystal-tree  grew  in  Shantung. 

Ch'eng  Lo  Yuet  should  go  to  England,  to  learn  of 
Europe — Europe's  rank  nefarious  wiles — to  return 
home  to  hoist  the  impertinent  invaders  with  their  own 
hot  petard. 


124        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

But  he  should  marry  first — and  beget  a  child — for 
China  must  not  be  left  Ch'engless — or  the  Ch*engs 
gone-on-high  without  earth-living  worshipers. 

Ch*eng  Lo  Yuet  should  beget  a  son,  here  where  his 
father  had  begotten  him,  and  then  he  should  go. 

He  should  beget  a  son.  She  gave  the  old  hope  up 
' — almost  the  wish.     That,  too,  she  sacrificed. 

And  when  Lo  Yuet's  age  came  ripe  for  it  she  found 
him  a  wife,  and  gave  her  to  him  without  a  pang.  Her 
capacity  for  personal  suffering  was  dead — buried  in 
the  coffin  of  Chii-po,  Ah  Song  thought — ^but  not  her 
capacity  for  loving — since  she  still  loved  Lo  Yuet  even 
more  than  she  had  loved  Chii-po. 

No  pre-romance  prefaced  the  marriage  of  Ch'eng 
Lo  Yuet. 

Ch*eng  Shao  Yiin  left  him  with  his  tutors,  and  made 
a  great  journey — an  almost  royal  progress — across 
China,  visiting  a  score  of  great  families,  studying  their 
daughters  well. 

She  selected  Hua  Foh  T*ien,  a  maiden  of  a  clan 
older  than  her  own,  and  as  great. 

And  when  Ch'eng  T'ien  was  big  with  child,  Shao 
Yiin  sent  Yuet  to  England. 

The  child  was  born — when  the  painted  lanterns 
swung  red  and  rose  and  gold  in  the  radiant  processional 
of  the  glowing  feast,  and  the  great  twisted  dragon 
belched  its  fiery  challenge  to  the  stars — again  a  boy. 

The  years  passed— quick  busy  years  for  all  on  the 
old  Ho-nrn  estate.  And  the  reports  that  came,  from 
Oxford  now,  of  the  progress  of  Ch*eng  Yuet,  could 
but  satisfy  the  all-demanding  heart  of  his  grand- 
mother. 

But  fate  had  not  yet  buffeted  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun 
enough 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         125 

When  Yuet*s  absence  had  less  than  two  years  to  run, 
his  young  son  died. 

Ch'eng  recalled  her  grandson  home. 

Again  when  the  line  of  Ch'eng  seemed  secured  she 
sent  him  back  to  complete  his  European  days  as  at 
first  planned:  a  few  months  more  in  Oxford,  then  a 
final  year  of  travel. 

But  fate  was  not  yet  done  with  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 

The  young  Chinese — the  foremost  student  of  his 
college,  and  easily  its  most  brilliant,  died  at  Oxford  a 
few  weeks  before  taking  his  degree. 

Shao  Yiin  heard  it  with  a  bitter  smile,  and  bade  them 
give  great  tending  to  Ch'eng  T'ien. 

For,  if  fate  were  or  were  not  done  with  Ch*eng  Shao 
Yiin,  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  not  yet  done  with  fate. 

Her  purpose  hdUi 


CHAPTER  XVII 

AH  SONG  came  from  the  chamber  of  Ch'eng  T'ien 
and  hurried  through  the  garden.  She  carried  no 
stick  or  staff,  but  she  sensed  her  way  with  a  double 
second-sight.  She  breasted  the  bridge,  skirted  the  lotus 
pond,  found  the  terrace,  and  left  it,  threaded  the  twisted 
paths  and  the  molten  quivering  tulip  maze,  without  a 
hesitation  or  one  mis-step.  She  knew  every  inch  of 
the  vast,  scattered  estate,  Ch*eng  Yiin^s  only  rival,  in 
sure,  intimate  mastery  of  its  every  path  and  nook. 

A  carrier  pigeon  winged  from  its  cote,  and  followed 
lier,  flying  low,  circling  her  head  again  and  again  with 
a  curling  waste  of  time  and  a  wanton  indirectness  of 
flight  that  told  its  flying  a  dallying  and  no  execu- 
tion of  message-business — calling  down  to  her 
now  and  then,  and  watching  her  expectantly 
through  its  hard  glittering  beads  of  crimson  eyes. 
Always  Ah  Song  had  a  word  for  every  bird. 
She  had  none  to-day.  On  the  terrace  the  pea- 
cocks strutted  to  her  screaming,  and  tweaked  her  skirt 
for  grain.  But  she  thrust  them  off,  tearing  her  gar- 
ments roughly  from  their  clamorous  beaks,  and  pushed 
through  them  on  towards  the  silkworm  sheds.  Ah 
Song  had  no  time  for  peacocks  now. 

The  Lady  Ch'eng  sat  brooding — lost  in  thought — 
on  a  bench  near  the  worms'  largest  shed,  and  did  not 
even  look  up  as  Ah  Song  came. 

"Honorable  mistress,  thy  slave  brings  news !" 

"So  "  was  Yiin's  scant  reply,  nor  did  she  lift  her 
eyes. 

V26 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         127 

"The  honorable  Ch'eng  T'ien^s  time  has  come." 

"Her  women  are  with  her — and  the  midwives?" 
But  Shao  Yiin  scarcely  seemed  interested. 

"All  that,  jade-like.    It  was  very  quick." 

"Nay — it  was  high  time." 

"It  is  not  that  thy  slave  means,  O  honorable." 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  did  not  trouble  to  ask  what  it  was 
than  that  Song  had  meant. 

"Her  hour  has  come — and  gone." 

Ch'eng  Yiin  looked  up  at  that.  "You  mean — the 
child  has  come? — Speak  to  the  point!" 

"O,  mistress,"  Song  stammered  brokenly. 

"The  child?"  Yiin  demanded  fiercely.  She  rose 
slowly — and  saw  that  tears  were  tumbling  from  the 
sightless  e)^es,  down  Ah  Song's  withered  face. 

"The  child  has  driven  Ch'eng  T'ien  on  high,"  Song 
retorted — almost  as  fiercely  as  Shao  Yiin  had  spoken 
— and  then  the  slave  whimpered,  then  sobbed;  for  she 
had  loved  the  young  mother  of  Lo  Yuet's  child. 

"That!"  Ch'eng  said  contemptuously.  For  what 
of  it?  Lo  Yuet  was  dead.  His  wife  could  bear  no 
other  child.  Ch'eng  Yiin  thrust  out  an  angry  arm  and 
clutched  Ah  Song's  wrist.  "The  child?"  she  hissed  at 
the  other,  stamping  a  foot — and  a  sob  broke  through 
the  hiss. 

"The  child  lives,  lady.  It  will  live.  It  is  well  with 
the  honorable  great-grandchild." 

"So "  Ch'eng  Yiin  said  more  gently.     "I  will  see 

it  presently,"  and  she  turned  and  went  a  pace  towards 
the  cocoons'  shed. 

Ah  Song  followed  her,  and  caught  at  her  robe. 

Yiin  looked  back  at  her  with  cold  astonishment. 
The  old  blind  servant  was  privileged — loved  even — 
Wt  not  privileged  to  such  license  as  this. 


128        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

But  Ah  Song  held  tightly  to  the  garment  she  had 
caught.  "Stay!"  she  implored.  And  she  kot'owed 
till  her  old  knees  creaked.  "My  honorable  mistress, 
it — ^it  is  a  girl" 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THOU  liest?  Thou  darest  to  lie?"  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiin  was  stammering  now.  A  painful  red  crept 
into  her  paintless  cheeks. 

**The  honorable  babe  is  strong  and  well,"  Song  said 
proudly.     "And  it  is — a  girl." 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  hid  her  face  behind  her  hands. 
They  twitched  a  little  too. 

"The  gods  are  good,"  she  whispered  presently. 
Then  she  turned,  and  moved  slowly  towards  the  house 
— the  dwelling  house  where  she  had  borne  her  sons, 
where  now  the  girl  dead  in  child-birth  lay,  and  a 
daughter  of  the  Ch'engs  lived — lived  to  lift  a  curse, 
lived  to  service  China. 

The  child  throve. 

When  the  time  came  to  name  her,  she  was  named 
T'ien  Tzu. 

They  named  her  T*ien  Tzu,  but  not,  of  course,  to 
call  her  that  for  years.  On  the  third  day,  when  her 
tiny  ears  were  pierced,  and  the  soft  thread  of  strong 
red  silk  left  in,  she  would  be  given  a  milk-name — she 
who  could  never  know  her  natural  milk — and  she 
would  gain  a  cradle-name,  and  presently  a  pet-name, 
Jade,  Moonlight,  Jessamine,  Lotus,  Rose,  Violet  or 
any  other  lovely  flower.  Though  probably  milk-name, 
cradle-name  and  pet-name  would  be  the  same.  She 
would  be  spoken  of,  as  every  new-come  girl  in  China 
(where  girl  babes  are  murdered,  so  'tis  said)  she  would 

I2g 


130        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

be  spoken  of  commonly  as  "my  thousand  ounces  o! 
gold."  Later  she  would  have  a  school-name,  though 
girls  of  such  high  birth  do  not  go  to  school.  But  her 
name  was  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu,  recorded  so  for  ever  on 
the  scroll  of  the  Ch'engs. 

And  if  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  loved  Chu-po,  as  she 
almost  madly  had,  if  Shao  Yiin  had  loved  Lo  Yuet 
even  more,  it  grew  to  worship,  the  love  she  gave  Ch'eng 
T'ien  Tzii. 

Never  an  hour  they  spent  apart.  And  when  T'ien 
Tzu  was  old  enough  to  notice  and  crave,  the  very  foods 
she  might  not  have  Ch'eng  Yiin  eschewed,  living  again 
on  the  pap  things  and  savorless  simplicities  that  chil- 
dren thrive  on  best. 

From  the  first  Yiin  taught  the  little  girl  herself.  All 
that  a  Chinese  girl  of  high  birth  should  know  was 
instilled  and  drilled  day  by  day  into  this  young  daugh- 
ter of  the  Ch'engs — accomplishments  and  learning  of 
sterner  stuff.  And  she  too,  was  taught  much  that 
many  maidens  of  her  own  caste  are  not  often  troubled 
or  privileged  to  master.  Above  all  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
taught  her  history — the  history  of  China  as  Pan  Chao 
— the  famous  historian  of  the  first  century  (a  woman, 
by  the  way) — ^had  known  and  written  it.  All  other 
history  seemed  of  small  account  to  Yiin — as  did  the 
peoples  whose  past  it  recorded.  For  herself  she 
scorned  to  waste  an  hour  upon  it — her  hours  grew  few 
now — but  because  she  destined  her  great-granddaugh- 
ter to  fight  and  worst  those  inferior  peoples,  and  knew 
the  fight  would  need  much  equipment  of  understand- 
ing them,  as  well  as  supersubtlety,  Yiin  judged  it  right 
that  Tzii  should  know  something  of  the  unworthy  his- 
tories of  unworthy  Christendom,  and  especially  of  the 
English  whom  Yiin  held  China's  foremost  menace. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         131 

And  for  that  purpose  Yiin  procured  and  employed  a 
tutor  from  the  University  at  Pekin,  a  learned  Chinese 
who  had  spent  some  years  in  Europe,  and  was  credited 
with  speaking  English  well,  and  with  having  studied 
diligently  at  Oxford.  He  came  when  Tzu  was  only 
six.  And  Ch'eng  Yiin  paid  him  richly  to  teach  Tzu 
English,  a  smattering  of  English  ways,  all  he  could  of 
English  history  and  of  its  inner  meaning,  and,  above 
all,  to  teach  his  pupil  to  hold  China  ever  higher  than 
the  barbarians  among  whom  she  already  knew  she  was 
soon  to  live. 

But  the  child's  Chinese  education  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
gave  her  herself,  and  was  well  able  to  do.  The  teem- 
ing literature,  the  splendid  arts,  the  kind  philosophies, 
the  unsurpassed  cultures  and  the  pretty  graces  of 
China,  the  doyen  lady  of  the  Ch'engs  knew  well.  She 
had  taught  her  sons,  and  her  sons'  sons,  and  was  as 
able  as  she  was  willing  to  teach  Ch'eng  Tzii. 

So  ambitious  was  Yiin  for  the  child  that  she  stinted 
her  of  play  and  of  playmates — but  did  not  quite  deprive 
her  of  either. 

Mung  Panii,  a  slave  girl  a  little  older  than  Tzu, 
shared  some  of  the  lessons  and  the  scant  hours  of  play. 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  no  mind  that  Tzii  should  forget, 
while  in  banishment,  either  the  language  or  the  thoughts 
of  China,  and  so  purposed  that  Mung  Panii  should  go 
to  England  with  Tzu,  that  they  might  speak  together 
for  an  hour  each  day — speak  Chinese.  And  for  this 
it  was  important  that  the  maid  should  speak  the  purest 
Chinese,  and  know  something  of  the  finer  things. 

On  warm  spring-time  days  sometimes  lessons  were 
relaxed  for  an  hour,  and  Yiin  would  take  Tzii  by  the 
hand,  and  wander  with  her  among  the  trees,  and  call 
the  wild  birds  down.     And  little  Tzii  would  flute  and 


132        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

chirrup  to  them  too,  and  once  a  katydid  came  and 
perched  upon  her  tiny  wrist,  and  poised  a  moment 
there,  happy  so.  And  always  at  the  New  Year  festivi- 
ties, all  Tzu's  tasks  were  laid  aside,  to  be  neglected, 
forgotten,  if  she  would,  until  after  the  Feast  of  Lan- 
terns. 

Of  all  the  mighty  race  of  Ch'eng  only  they  two  were 
left  to  watch  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  now — Ch'eng  Shao 
Yun,  growing  old  at  last,  and  little  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu 
clinging  to  her  skirts.  But  each  year  Yiin  decreed  that 
the  Feast  should  be  richer  and  lovelier  than  it  had  been 
before.  That  seemed  impossible.  But  the  indomita- 
ble woman  wrought  it.  She  had  boundless  wealth, 
and  at  her  aid  the  incomparable  arts  of  an  imperial 
people  which,  if  not  as  immeasurably  superior  to  all 
others  as  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  thought,  must  be  conceded 
by  any  sane  and  intelligent  judgment,  second  to  none. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  always  loved  the  Feast  of  Lan- 
terns, and  she  had  always  loved  to  display  her  wealth. 
And  she  suspected — there  were  hints  of  it — that  in  the 
flesh  she  should  not  see  the  feast  for  many  more  years 
now.  The  grief  of  her  life  had  strained  her,  and 
strained  her  all  the  more  because  she  had  willed  to  show 
no  sign  of  it,  to  meet  and  greet  it  with  an  unmoved 
face.  And  the  shock  of  Tzu's  birth,  a  girl  come  to 
them  at  last,  had  strained  her  even  more. 

And  she  chose  to  make  for  Ch'eng  Tzu  out  of  the 
Feast  of  Lanterns  a  picture  book  that  should  epitomize 
all  the  great  panorama  of  Chinese  art  and  life — China's 
history,  China's  tenets,  all  that  was  spiritual,  all  that 
was  bed-rock  of  glorious  fact :  China's  very  soul.  She 
sought  to  give  the  child  a  picture  and  an  imprint  deep- 
bitten,  a  memory  and  a  sense,  that  could  not  fade,  go 
where  she  would,  do  what  she  might. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         133 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  was  a  still  child.  For  a  Chinese 
of  her  sex  she  was  almost  tongue-tied.  Her  hates 
and  loves  were  hidden  deep — if  she  had  them.  They 
rarely  showed.  But  she  took  a  passionate  delight 
from  the  first  in  the  Feast  of  Lanterns.  It  gave  her 
her  first  vivid  impression,  and  her  most  lasting — an 
impression  that  each  year  deepened,  to  which  each 
year  added  glow,  detail  and  significance.  In  it  she 
sensed  the  soul  of  China,  and  through  it  learned  her 
glory  imperial  and  imperishable.  Through  it  she 
grasped  the  dual  religion  of  her  race,  and  made  it  her 
own,  as  through  nothing  else  she  could  have  done — 
the  pulsing,  living  religion  that  is  half  ancestor  wor- 
ship, half  worship  of  the  beauty  of  nature.  For  the 
Feast  of  Lanterns,  as  Yiin  taught  her  from  the  first,  is 
China's  yearly  offering  to  the  quick  spirits  of  her  dead; 
and  each  jeweled,  embroidered  lantern,  swinging  and 
lurching  pendant  to  the  less  radiant  night,  reflects  and 
records  some  flower  or  other  gem  of  nature  or  some 
jewel  of  China's  story,  as  Chinese  porcelain  reflects 
and  records  the  treasures  of  her  greater  arts. 

The  Feast  of  Lanterns  came  to  be  a  sacrament  to 
little  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu.    It  is  that  to  most  Chinese. 

Tzu  knew  how  long  and  how  arduous  was  its  prep- 
aration each  year,  what  skill  and  industry  went  to 
the  making  of  it.  And  the  knowing  made  of  Chinese 
ceaseless  industry  a  rite  and  a  dignity.  For  always 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin — leaning  now  a  little  on  her  ivory 
staff — was  at  her  side  to  speak  the  illuminating  word, 
to  walce  the  burning  Chinese  thought.  Yiin  intended 
that  Tzii  should  go  to  Europe,  but  Yiin  intended  that 
Europe  should  leave  Ch'eng  Tzii  cold. 

The  first  thing  Tzii  could  remember  was  the  Feast 
of  Lanterns.     And  when  her  time  came  to  become  a 


134        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

guest  on  high,  her  last  earth-lingering  thought  would 
be  of  the  Feast  of  Lanterns. 

When  Tzu  was  ten  the  festival  was  kept  with  such 
extravagance  of  splendor,  such  ingenuity  of  new  device, 
that  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  knew  that  even  she  could  never 
hope  to  surpass  it  in  all  the  years  to  come.  She  was 
satisfied  that  it  should  be  so.  For  years  would  pass 
before  Ch'eng  Tzii  should  see  the  great  home  feast 
again. 

They  watched  it  hand  in  hand.  But  they  watched  it 
silently.  Even  Yiin  had  nothing  more  to  tell  the  child,, 
and  the  woman's  throat  was  stiff  and  choked. 

On  the  morrow  the  little  Chinese  girl  of  ten  began 
her  long  journeying.  She  went  wondering  but  placid 
and  obedient,  neither  anxious  nor  depressed.  She 
went  with  many  obeisances,  but  scarcely  with  regret. 
Her  young  sheltered  life  had  been  so  free  from  pain  or 
doubt  that  she  could  not  conceive  that  either  could 
ever  come  to  her,  or  indeed  conceive  of  them  at  all. 
And,  too,  she  came  of  a  race  whose  women  for  thous- 
ands of  years  had,  when  little  older  than  she,  been  sent 
from  home  never  to  return,  lifted  into  their  *'flow- 
eries"  and  given  to  a  new  home,  an  unknown  husband 
and  to  other  mothering, 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  felt  the  parting  more — felt  it  so 
sharply  that  almost  she  showed  it. 

She  felt  that  she  might  not  see  Tzii  again.  She 
knew  that  ill-health  and  break-up  threatened  her. 
Even  if  she  lived  many  years,  this  was  her  parting 
from  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu.  For  the  girl  would  return 
to  China  of  marriageable  age — and  more.  To  be  sure, 
Yiin  had  no  thought  to  give  her  in  marriage — but 
rather  to  adopt  the  younger  son  of  some  great  house. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        135 

both  that  the  ancestors  of  the  Gh'engs  might  be  duly 
worshiped,  and  that  Ch'eng  Tzu  might  hve  her  Hfe 
out  in  the  stronghold  of  the  Ch'engs — still  a  Ch'eng 
and  the  mother  of  Ch'engs:  doubly  Ch'eng — Ch'eng 
by  marriage  as  Ch'eng  by  birth.  But  even  so  the  Eng- 
lish years  would  change  the  girl.  The  child  that  she 
was  giving  up  would  never  come  back  to  her  again. 
In  giving  Tzu  she  was  giving  her  all — more  than  her 
life,  because  the  music  and  the  sunshine  of  her  life, 
the  one  companionship  left  to  her  now  from  all  her 
long  life's  wealth  of  love.  But  never  for  one  heart- 
beat did  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  waver— -or  even  think  of 
it — from  the  purpose  that  I  Kong  Moy  had  stirred  in 
her  on  the  day  that  Tzu's  grandfather  Chii-po  had  first 
seen  Tzu's  grandmother.  Ting  Tzu.  For  the  imperi- 
ous old  woman  was  abjectly  and  devotedly  the  servant 
of  great  imperial  China. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

ENGLAND  was  very  kind  to  the  little  Chinese 
stranger  within  its  fog-hung  gates.  The  child's 
sweetness  was  unmistakable,  her  dainty  high-breeding 
told  instantly  on  all  who  met  her — on  those  who  were 
precluded  from  realising  just  what  the  strong  charm 
was  almost  as  much  as  on  those  whose  caste-sympathy 
recognized  it  as  a  fine  something  in  which  they  them- 
selves had  their  own  lesser  share,  and  her  personal 
beauty  was  irresistible.  For  when  the  oddness  had 
worn  off  a  little,  even  the  dullest  English  eyes,  and 
the  most  isle-bound  British  taste,  could  not  fail  to  see 
that  Ch'eng  Tzu  was  very  lovely. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  had  known  from  the  first  that 
her  great  granddaughter  was  strangely  like  the  girl  with 
whom  Chu-po  had  fallen  so  madly  in  love — and,  as  it 
proved,  so  irrevocably.  And  year  by  year,  Ch'eng 
T'ien  Tzu  grew  more  and  more  like  her  father's  mother 
when  the  elder  Tzu  had  been  loveliest,  and  had  just 
come  to  Ho-nan  and  to  love.  Critical  and  familiar 
eyes  could  scarcely  have  told  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  from 
Ting  Tzu  at  the  same  age,  had  it  not  been  for  one  dif- 
ference slight  but  marked — a  difference  that  was  the 
granddaughter's  one  visible  inheritance  from  her 
mother. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  had  the  characteristically  Chinese 
lovely  and  luminous  eyes,  but  they  were  set  straight  in 
her  head,  as  Manchu  eyes  so  often  are,  and  as  Ch'eng 
Hua  Foh  T'ien's  had  been.     And  more  than  once 

136 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         137 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  wondered  if  there  were  any 
truth  in  a  scandal  centuries  old  that  had  discredited  a 
lady  of  the  Huas  with  a  Manchu  lover  of  imperial 
rank.  It  had  never  beoti  proved.  And  Hua  Foh 
T'ien's  dowery  had  been  fabulous,  and  her  feet  almost 
smaller  than  Yiin^s  tiny  own.  But  every  few  genera- 
tions some  babe  of  descent  from  the  impeccable  Chinese 
house  of  Hua  came  into  life  with  its  new  eyes  straight 
set, 

Tzu  liked  England  from  the  first.  And  from  the 
first  she  won  her  way  into  the  English  hearts  about  her. 
After  the  first  brief,  sharp  homesickness  all  the  lines 
of  her  English  sojourn  fell  in  pleasant,  kindly  places. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  was  obsessed  and  imperious,  but 
she  was  sane. 

She  had  made  no  attempt  to  select  herself  t^e  house 
of  Tzu's  European  stay — appreciating  that  she, 
Chinese  and  in  far  off  Ho-nan,  could  have  no  wiseness 
concerning  the  child's  English  environment  or  entour- 
age. So  she  put  its  determining  into  Sheng  Liu*s 
hands,  and  into  those  of  a  Chinese  official  in  London. 
Neither  man  blundered. 

Ch'eng  Yiin's  sanity  had  exacted  of  her  one  other 
concession  concerning  Tzu — a  concession  that  cost  Yiin 
considerably  more  self-control  and  sacrifice.  She  had 
made  no  attempt  to  instil  her  own  acrid  hatred  of  the 
English  into  the  tender,  sunny  soul  of  little  Tzu.  She 
had  taught  her  that  with  every  decent  Chinese  China 
came  first — that  the  Chinese  was  first  of  all  the  peoples 
— and  that  a  Chinese  of  high  birth,  any  Ch'eng,  could 
give  China  nothing  short  of  worship  and  selfless  fealty. 
But  beyond  these  broad  lines  she  neither  went  nor  tried 
to  go.  For  she  realized  that  a  pre-prejudice  must 
cramp  the  young  plastic  mind,  and  incapacitate  it  to 


138        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

understand  best,  and  best  learn  from,  the  English. 
And  she  trusted  the  girl's  own  Chinese  instinct  and 
acuteness  to  draw  their  own  conclusions — always  to 
China's  favor — and  to  harden  into  just  enmity  when 
the  time  for  enmity  and  action  should  come.  For  she 
had  seen  her  own  intellect,  her  own  force^  her  own 
indomitable  persistence  beneath  the  gentleness  and  the 
exquisite  loveliness  that  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  had  inher- 
ited from  Chii-po's  wife.  And  she  was  well  assured 
that  in  her  child's  scarce  conscious  heart  throbbed  a 
patriotism  and  a  loyalty  as  deep  and  as  uncompromis- 
ing as  her  own.  She  trusted  Tzu,  for  Tzu  was 
Chinese  and  a  Ch'eng — descended  from  half  the  great- 
est clans  in  China — descended,  best  of  all  perhaps,  from 
the  house  of  Shao.  She  sensed  herself  within  the 
child;  and  perhaps  trusted  her  most,  as  certainly  she 
loved  her  most,  for  that — and  she  felt  secure  that  when 
she  left  the  earth-land  she  loved,  and  to  her  utmost 
served,  her  own  soul  would  live  on  in  Ho-nan  in  the 
bosom  of  the  girl  with  the  perfect  eyebrows  and  deep, 
jade-like  eyes,  set  Manchu-level  in  a  peach-like  face. 

To  this  second  concession — so  difficult  that  only  a 
great  soul  could  have  made  it,  or  a  great  will  enforced, 
little  Tzu  owed  even  more  than  she  did  to  the  first  of 
her  happiness  in  England. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  was  very  happy  in  England. 

And  while  she  grew  there,  and  grew  not  a  little  into 
English  ways  and  thinking,  the  bereft  grandmother 
lived  on  in  China,  growing  strangely  older,  but  busier 
and  more  busied  than  before — she  grieved,  but  it  was 
not  in  her  to  repine  or  be  idle.  And  she  saw  each  day 
China's  peril,  and  China's  need  of  loyal  service  and 
action,  growing  more  and  more. 

Each  year  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  kept  its  solemn* 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         139 

sparkling  festival.  But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  never 
watched  it  now — scarcely  turned  her  head  from  book 
or  document  when  the  crackers  cannonaded  through 
the  paths,  much  less  went  to  her  casement  to  watch  the 
great  illuminated  dragon  as  it  passed.  She  would 
watch  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  next  when  she  watched  it 
hand-in-hand  with  home-come  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu,  or — 
more,  probably,  she  thought — when  she  came  back  to 
it  a  guest  from  on  high. 

She  leaned  heavily  on  her  ivory  stave  now  when  she 
walked,  but  she  went,  even  more  ceaselessly  than 
before,  about  her  great  domain  where  the  coal  mines 
belched  up  a  rich  daily  harvest  of  black  gold,  and  the 
silkworms — though  Ho-nan  is  a  province  of  wild  and 
inferior  silks — because  Ch'eng  Yiin  willed  and  planned 
and  watched  it,  and  her  servants  obeyed,  spun  her  a 
sheened,  supple  wealth  that  fed  upon  the  fabric  markets 
of  the  world.  A  Tzarina  wore  coronation  silk  that 
had  been  the  Lady  Ch'eng's,  and  a  cardinal  wore  it  in 
the  Vatican,  and  the  very  by-products  of  the  place 
wove  and  piled  her  fortune  a  Rothschild  might  strain 
to  match. 

And  in  every  village  and  hillside  home  there  was 
peace  and  plenty,  and  at  least  one  woman  who  carried 
cocoons  in  her  yellow  breast,  and  when  their  time  had 
come — her  day's  housewifery  done — lit  her  oil-fed 
light,  or  her  resined  torch,  scalded  the  cocoons,  and 
her  own  patient  heroic  hands,  spun  the  cocoons'  gleam- 
ing oflf-flux,  and  wove  it  on  a  homemade  bamboo  loom. 
And  to  every  humble  home  that  was  her  people's,  the 
Lady  came  and  served  and  ruled  it  as  tenderly  and 
ruthlessly  as  she  did  the  gigantic  industries  of  the  place 
"•—the  great  silkworm  sheds,  the  dark  coal  mines,  the 
teeming  acres  of  cotton  fields,  the  busy  factories,  the 


HO        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

art  works  and  the  great  store-houses  opulent  with  grain 
— tottering  sometimes  on  her  own  tiny,  indefatigable 
feet,  carried  sometimes  in  her  palanquin. 

Too  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  often  went  from  Ho-nan  in 
these  later  years  of  her  loneliness.  Probably  she 
would  have  done  so  in  any  case,  since  she  wished  it,  and 
thought  it  best — for,  however  subservient  to  custom 
such  imperious  women  may  seem  or  hope  to  be,  they 
never  are  in  fact  subservient  when  subservience  would 
entail  an  unwilling  and  not  self-willed  abnegation  of 
self  and  of  personal  conviction.  The  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yuns  of  earth  rule  their  own  daily  destinies  every- 
where. But  even  in  China — perhaps  more  in  China 
than  anywhere  else — a  woman  as  old  as  Ch'eng  Yiin 
was  now,  as  rich  and  as  strong  of  character  and  poise, 
may  do,  and  even  go,  much  as  she  will. 

Again  she  had  a  son,  a  boy  adopted  by  her  that  the 
ancestor-worship  of  the  Ch'engs  need  not  lapse  or  fail, 
that  the  Ch'eng  name  might  not  die,  but  live  in  the  sons 
•f  Tzu,  and  that  Tzu  herself  should  neither  be  hus- 
]»ndless  nor  dwell  permanently  elsewhere  than  on  their 
own  estate.  The  boy  was  being  educated  in  Pekin, 
strictly  in  accordance  with  the  judgment  and  wish  of 
C3i'eng  Shao  Yiin  and  under  her  strict  supervision. 

But  it  was  not  to  see  him — Ch'eng  Wen — that  the 
woman  journeyed  to  Pekin,  as  she  often  did.  He  was 
Iwit  a  passive  pawn  in  her  game  of  life,  in  no  way,  and 
in  no  way  to  become,  of  her  affection — just  a  necessity 
bought  and  paid  for,  a  chattel  necessary  to  her  scheme 
of  life  for  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzii.  And  it  was  Tzia — not  he 
— that  Yiin  intended  to  rule,  when  Tzii  had  come 
home,  and  she  herself  had  joined  their  ancestors. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  pilgrimaged  to  Pekin  to  hold  con- 
ference with  the   great   Dowager.     They   had   been 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         141 

friends  for  years,  the  Manchu  Empress  and  the  Chinese 
chieftainess,  close-knit  in  their  one  love  of  China — - 
their  burning  patriotism — and  in  their  hatred,  and 
growing  fear,  of  the  encroaching  foreigners. 

The  Chinese  peril  grew  near  and  acute — not  the 
"Yellow  Peril'*  of  which  the  papers  of  Christendom 
prate  glibly  when  copy's  scarce,  and  which  may  yet 
strike  Europe  harder  than  any  one  of  Fleet  Street 
thinks  (but  in  its  nastiest,  most  merciless  scourge  to 
come  from  a  smaller,  younger,  less  honest  people  than 
the  Chinese)  but  a  dual  peril  threatening  China  from 
within,  and  from  the  prying  aliens  without. 

War  menaced,  international  war.  And  the  secret 
societies  festered  and  cankered  at  home. 

The  two  women,  great  enthroned  Manchu  and  great 
Chinese,  were  troubled  and  anxious.  Anxiety  grew  to 
alarm.  Tze-Shi  and  Ch'eng  Yiin  were  almost  some- 
what distraught. 

But  in  England,  the  girl  Tzu — almost  as  blind  as 
British  statesmanship— took  no  heed  of  such  things. 

She  grew  in  the  cool  English  green  like  some  happily 
transplanted  exotic  flower  in  the  quiet  garden  of  hd 
simple  country  rectory  home. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  was  well  content  in  England. 

Mung  Panii  was  not. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TV/fUNG  PANU  disliked  everything  in  England, 
-*--■"  and  Ch'eng  Tzu  disliked  some  few  things  very 
much. 

She  missed  the  sun.  Even  in  summer  the  sun 
seemed  far-off  to  her  and  cold,  as  it  had  never  seemed 
in  China.  And  in  the  long,  sunless  stretches  of  the 
English  winter  she  suffered  an  agony  of  spirit  that  was 
even  worse  than  the  withering  shrinking  of  body.  She 
wore  furs  in  the  house,  and  Mrs.  Ford,  tenderly  anx- 
ious for  the  Chinese  children's  comfort,  piled  up  the 
Rectory  fires  until  the  servants  feared  she'd  bum  the 
Rectory  down,  and  the  Rector  said  so,  and  often  in  the 
night  rose  from  his  comfortable  bed  to  prowl  and  peer 
about  the  house  unhappily,  sniffing  and  looking  for 
smoldering  disaster.  But  in  that  first  winter  of  her 
English  stay  little  Ch'eng  Tzu  was  never  once  really 
warm.  "Does  the  sun  never  shine  in  England?"  she 
cried  more  than  once  to  the  fog  when  it  blanketed  the 
Rectory  and  the  village  in  impenetrable  gloom.  But 
summer  came  again,  and  brought  her  flowers.  And 
when  the  next  winter  came  Chinese  Tzu  had  grown  a 
little  acclimated;  if  not  reconciled.  But  she  never 
ceased  to  miss  the  sun,  the  hot,  downpouring  Chinese 
sun,  and  to  long  and  even  sicken  for  it,  as  the  drunk- 
ard, denied,  craves  for  wine. 

Often  the  Rectory  food  revolted  the  child.  Mrs. 
Ford  kept  a  generous  table  and  had  an  excellent  cook. 
But  the  best  English  cooking  is  so  inferior  to  the  every- 

Id2 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         143 

day  fare  of  well-to-do  Chinese  that  it  is  surprising  that 
Ch'eng  Yun's  great-grandchild  contrived  to  eat  enough 
to  keep  her  well  during  those  first  savorless  months  at 
the  Rectory.  Beef  is  a  positive  offense  to  most  Chinese 
palates;  it  was  to  Tzu's.  And  the  knives  and  forks 
frightened  her.  And  Mrs.  Ford  made  culinarily  the 
greatest  mistake  of  all,  and  made  it,  as  such  mistakes 
are  so  often  made,  out  of  the  veriest  kindness — ^in 
attempting  to  tempt  little  Miss  Ch'eng  with  Chinese 
dishes.  She  questioned  Mung  Panii  and  ransacked 
books  of  Chinese  travel  for  food  hints.  The  prepar- 
ing of  the  resultant  dishes  first  made  the  placid  Rectory 
cook  sullen  and  then  quarrelsome,  and  set  before 
Ch'eng  Tzu  she  found  them  even  nastier  than  she  had 
found  their  predecessors.  That  they  were  Chinese  she 
never  even  suspected.  Then  Tzu's  Rectory  menu  set- 
tled down  to  a  long  deluge  of  rice.  Such  rice  I  Ch'eng 
Tzu  hardly  recognized  it  at  first. 

But  she  was  young  and  strong,  and  determined  to 
be  pleased,  if  she  could.  And,  if  she  never  learned 
to  relish  beef  and  roast  potatoes,  she  grew  used  to 
much  that  was  set  before  her,  and  throve  and  kept  bon- 
nie  on  chicken  and  tomatoes,  pancakes,  bread  and  milk, 
fruit  and  the  Rectory  eggs  and  fish. 

Cold  baths  she  would  not  endure.  Indeed  Mrs.  Ford 
never  tried  that  but  once.  Once  was  quite  enough. 
Tzu  never  succeeded  in  getting  in  England  a  bath 
that  she  considered  hot,  until  she  had  an  English  house 
of  her  own,  but  she  did  get  them — after  that  first 
memorable  cold  one — of  a  temperature  that  she  ad- 
mitted endurable.     Mrs.  Ford  called  them  boiling. 

Her  new  English  clothes  troubled  the  Chinese  child 
not  a  little.  She  felt  them  uncomfortable,  and  saw 
them  hideous.    But  she  was  obedient — Ch'eng  Yiin  had 


144        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

enjoined  it — and  Beatrice  Ford  was  lenient.  She  let 
the  child  select  the  colors  she  was  to  wear,  and  wear 
English  cuts  and  trimmings  somewhat  modified 
towards  Chinese  modes.  Tzu  insisted  upon  tying  her 
blue-black  hair  with  crimson  ribbons — the  signal  color 
of  Chinese  maidenhood,  and  Mrs.  Ford  made  no  ob- 
jection. And  twice  a  year  a  box  of  clothing  came 
from  China,  and  in  her  own  room  often,  and  in  the 
general  house  sometimes,  Ch'eng  Tzu  was  allowed  to 
wear  her  lovely  native  dress.  Why  *' Madame  Ch'eng" 
sent  Tzu  the  Chinese  garments  greatly  puzzled  the 
English  lady.  For  Cheng  Liu  told  her  that  the  ven- 
erable lady  in  Ho-nan  imperatively  wished  that  Tzu 
should  in  all  possible  ways  conform  to  English  cus- 
toms. But  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  as  httle  wished  Tzu  to 
forget  what  Chinese  clothes  were,  or  how  to  wear  them, 
as  she  wished  her  to  forget  how  to  read,  write  and 
speak  Chinese.  The  Chinese  clothes  were  sent,  as 
Mung  Panti  had  been  sent — to  remind  Ch'eng  T'ien 
Tzu  of  home,  and  to  keep  her  accustomed  to  things 
Chinese. 

Long  Chinese  letters  came  to  the  child,  and  went 
from  her.  She  had  Chinese  books  with  her,  and  mu- 
sical instruments,  and  quite  a  horde  of  Chinese  toys 
— clay  and  wooden  figures  and  animals — gayly  painted, 
a  score  of  games  and  half  a  score  of  costly  Chinese 
dolls — all  treasures  of  her  younger  days.  Tzu  at  ten 
was  quite  too  old  for  toys.  But  she  loved  them  all. 
But  Mrs,  Ford  soon  found  that  Tzu  preferred  not 
to  show  her  Chinese  toys,  and  liked  nothing  less  than 
visiting  or  being  visited  by  English  children.  And 
nothing  would  induce  her  to  bring  her  lute  or  her 
guitar  out  of  her  own  room,  or  to  play  her  C/linese 
music  except  there. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         145 

At  first  Sheng  Liu  came  to  the  Rectory  often,  and 
stayed  always  several  days.  Then — as  the  girl  grew 
more  accustomed  to  her  new  surroundings — he  came 
less  frequently  and  stayed  more  briefly.  But  he  never 
ceased  to  come,  and  he  wrote  to  Tzu,  and  she  to  him. 

The  Rector  liked  to  teach.  Tzu  loved  to  learn.  And 
they  two  got  on  famously  together.  She  was  ap- 
palled at  his  ignorance — of  China,  and  despised  him  for 
it  not  a  little.  But  she  soon  learned  that  most  Eng- 
lish folk  knew  even  less  of  China  than  he  did:  he 
knew  that  there  were  eighteen  provinces  in  China, 
he  knew  that  white  poppies  yielded  the  better  crop, 
and  he  had  heard  of  Marco  Polo  and  of  the  great  ob- 
servatory at  Pekin.  Most  English  people,  she  dis- 
covered, had  not. 

She  had  no  playmates  here.  The  Ford  boys  were 
away  at  school  in  Germany — all  three  of  them,  and 
would  probably  not  come  home  until  she  had  gone  to 
school  in  London,  which  she  was  to  do  as  soon  as  it 
could  be  arranged,  and  she  had  learned  enough  Eng- 
lish, and  enough  of  English  ways.  And  she  learned 
both  rapidly.  She  had  no  playmates,  but  she  had 
had  but  few  in  Ho-nan.  And,  when  she  found  how 
Tzu  disliked  it,  Mrs.  Ford  soon  gave  up  inviting  Eng- 
lish children  to  the  Rectory  over  often.  But  Tzu 
had  Mung  Panii  with  her  always,  and  Sheng  Liu  to 
come  to  her,  if  she  wished  him,  and  to  come  as  fast  as 
English  steam  would  bring  him. 

And  so  the  child  led  her  little  dual  life — English- 
seeming,  Chinese  at  core. 

Mrs.  Ford  wondered  how  soon  the  English  part 
would  get  the  upper  hand,  and  drive  the  old  Chinese 
thought  and  feeling  into  obscurity,  and  banishment. 
And  sometimes  Sheng  Liu  grimly  wondered  it  too. 


146        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Mung  Panti  feared  it.  And  Panii  combated  it  with 
all  her  might  and  with  all  her  Chinese  skill.  Of  all 
her  great  devoted  retinue  none  had  ever  served  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin  more  ardently  than  the  homesick  slave  girl 
Mung  Panii  did — none  unless  blind  Ah  Song. 

Beatrice  Ford  taught  Tzu  to  skate  and  to  ride. 
The  Rector  taught  her  golf  and  chess,  and  the  les- 
sons that  seemed  to  Sheng  Liu  most  desirable, 

Tzu  liked  Mrs.  Ford.  She  liked  the  Rector  better 
— until  he  began  to  press  his  faith  upon  her  a  little 
unwisely.  Possibly  like  her  great-grandmother,  Tzu 
had  more  flair  for  men  than  for  women.  Certainly 
she  liked  Sheng  more  warmly  than  she  did  Mung 
Panii,  and  preferred  his  company  to  Panii's,  liked  the 
Rector — at  first — a  little  better  than  she  did  his  wife, 
though  Mrs.  Ford  was  destined  to  wear  better  in  the 
child's  regard.  And  the  greatest  friend  she  made 
in  her  Rectory  years  was  a  man,  and  her  capture  of 
him  was  something  of  a  triumph.  Gibbs  the  old 
gardener  was  sour  and  gnarled.  He  worked  well.  But 
he  was  never  known  to  speak  unless  spoken  to,  and 
rarely  to  answer  with  decent  civility  then.  And  he 
hated  all  she-things — two-footed  or  four — with  a 
deadly,  venomous  hatred.  Tzii  made  him  hers  within 
a  month.  They  spent  long  hours  together,  trowels  and 
watering  cans  in  hand,  and  he  told  the  Rector  that 
the  "little  yellow  heathen''  made  the  flowers  grow. 
Perhaps  she  did.  For  she  loved  them.  And  she 
warmed  one  churlish  old  English  heart. 

A  sincere  churchman,  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
Philip  Ford  would  refrain  from  trying  to  show  Ch'eng 
Tzii  the  error  of  Chinese  theologies.  How  could  he? 
It  would  not  have  been  to  his  credit.     But  his  cau- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         147 

tious  attempt  at  proselytizing  only  served  to  lose  him 
his  first  place  in  Tzu^s  regard. 

He  went  to  work  very  subtly,  as  he  thought.  But 
the  Chinese  girl  instantly  discovered  his  intention,  and 
her  Chinese  soul  took  offense, — not  fright — and  its 
wings  beat  back  to  the  painted  gods  of  China.  She 
had  one  with  her,  in  a  box  of  camphorwood.  She 
had  forgotten  it — but  now  she  took  it  out,  and  put 
it  beside  her  picture  of  Ch*eng  Shao  Yiin.  And  Mrs. 
Ford  and  the  maids  thought  it  quite  the  ugliest  of 
her  dolls. 

If  the  English  cleric  had  been  less  profoundly  ig- 
norant of  the  belief  he  aimed  to  annihilate,  his  chance 
of  success  might  have  been  more.  But  probably  not, 
for  irreligion  is  fairly  invincible.  And  in  any  Euro- 
pean sense  the  Chinese  mind  is  essentially  irreligious. 
Confucianism,  Taoism  and  Buddhism  are  accredited 
the  three  religions  of  China.  But  the  statement  is  lax. 
Confucianism  is  not  a  religion.  It  is  a  philosophy,  a 
code  of  ethics,  and  of  conduct.  Taoism,  more  spirit- 
ual— and  to-day  more  debased — is  scarcely  more.  Bud- 
dhism has  little  hold  in  China — except  upon  the  sim- 
plest minds  here  and  there  in  the  remote  North.  The 
religion  of  China  is  a  mingling  of  common  sense, 
reverence  for  ancestors,  and  adoration  of  nature.  And, 
because  it  satisfies  its  adherents,  it  will  not  easily  be 
undermined.  The  Rev.  Philip  Ford  never  got  one 
word  of  his  message  through  to  Tzu — nor  would  he 
have  done  so,  if  she  had  spent  as  many  years  at  the 
Rectory  as  she  spent  months.  He  was  a  good  teacher. 
He  knew  his  theme.     But  he  did  not  know  Tzu's. 

She  had  seen  the  kitchen  gods  abused  and  left  sup- 
perless  at  home  when  her  rice  had  displeased  Ch'eng 


148        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Yiin,  and  regularly  as  the  dinner  hour  came  around 
Ch'eng  Tzu  regretted  that  Mrs.  Ford  had  no  kitchen 
gods,  and  longed  to  procure  her  a  pair — to  supervise 
the  Rectory  cooking. 

But  the  Rector  made  an  admirable  English  scholar 
of  Ch'eng  Tzu  and  quickly  taught  her  how  to  beat 
him  at  billiards  every  time. 

Tzu  loved  no  one,  except  her  great-grandmother 
across  the  world  in  Ho-nan.  But  they  all  loved  her, 
and  were  tenderly  good  to  her.  Beatrice  Ford  cried 
herself  to  sleep  the  first  time  she  saw  Ch'eng  Tzu*s 
naked  feet.  Mung  Panii  was  furious.  Tzii  was 
greatly  offended.  But  from  that  hour  the  English 
woman  devoted  herself  to  the  Chinese  child  almost 
fanatically.  And  the  busy  days  passed  fairly  happily 
for  the  exiled  little  Ch'eng. 

Of  course,  she  was  home-sick  sometimes — and  ex- 
cept for  her  own  companionship,  and  the  companion- 
ship of  the  flowers,  and  the  animals  about  the  place, 
she  was  very  lonely. 

Beatrice  Ford's  heart  bled  hourly  for  the  child.  She 
was  sorry  too  for  Mung  Panii.  But  Panii  was  older 
— and,  as  Mrs.  Ford  told  her  husband,  Panii  had  her 
feet.  But  Tzii  was  such  a  baby — barely  ten — and  her 
feet  so  cruelly  maimed.  Beatrice  Ford  thought  that 
the  old  Ch'eng  woman  in  China  must  be  insane — or 
else  a  monster — to  send  such  a  child  so  far,  to  live 
among  entire  strangers — strangers  alien  to  her  in  every 
way. 

And  there  was  something  little  short  of  tragedy  in 
it,  truly  enough!  A  child  of  ten,  a  girl  child  delicately 
reared,  exquisitely  sheltered  till  now.  Born  in  riotous 
sunshine,  brought  up  in  sunshine,  living  all  her  little 
life  in  a  land  throbbing  with  color  and  with  festival, 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         149 

ringing  with  laughter  and  song;  steeped  in  glowing 
traditions  and  in  picture,  the  very  devils  picturesque 
and  amusing,  suddenly  sent  across  the  world  tossed  on 
the  great,  seemingly-shoreless  ocean,  in  a  monster 
ship,  no  woman  of  her  own  race  near  her,  only  a  slave 
girl  more  frightened  and  homesick  than  herself  for 
companionship,  thrust  into  the  English  fog  and  mist 
and  cold,  given  strange  foods  to  eat,  with  strange 
utensils,  told  to  speak  a  language  she  did  not  know, 
stared  at  if  she  went  outside  the  gate  as  if  she'd  been 
a  circus  or  an  unbelievable  sleight  of  hand  performance 
or  some  abnormal  growth  or  a  "freak"  of  nature — ^to 
live  her  girlhood  out  among  people  who  could  not 
possibly  understand  her,  and  whom  she  could  not  pos- 
sibly understand!  Beatrice  Ford  wondered  that  such 
an  experience  did  not  kill  or  craze  her. 

Oh!  she  was  very  good  to  Tzu — and  scarcely  less 
good  to  Mung  Panii. 

And  indeed  to  meet  the  experience  as  little  Tzii  did 
told  her  very  callous,  or  very  brave. 

Tzu  was  wonderfully  brave.  Her  race  had  been 
brave  for  many  centuries.  And  she  had  boundless 
confidence  in  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun.  She  knew  that  what- 
ever her  great-grandmother  had  done  was  kindest — 
and  deserved  her  burning  gratitude.  And  her  love 
and  loyalty  never  wavered. 

And  in  Ho-nan  Ch'eng  Yiin  sickened  for  her  child. 

And  Tzii  was  very  busy.  Her  great-grandmother 
had  told  her  to  work.  She  worked !  And  there  was 
so  much  to  learn.  And  she  wished  to  learn  it  all. 
And  she  had  dreams  for  comforters,  warm  day-dreams 
of  her  going  home,  of  the  time  to  come  when  her 
hand  would  lie  close  and  safe  again  in  Ch'eng  Yun's 
hand.     The  lilies  in  the  courtyard  would  make  her 


150        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

garments  sweet,  and  the  fireflies  at  the  night  time  would 
turn  the  garden  into  fairyland. 

But  sometimes  her  face  quivered  a  little  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  night,  when  the  winter  rain  beat  upon 
her  window-pane,  and  the  wind  whistled  down  her  bed- 
room chimney.  Sometimes,  when  she  was  sure  that 
Mung  Panii  slept,  she  crept  out  of  bed,  and  caught 
up  a  doll,  or  a  spotted  wooden  tiger,  and  took  it  back 
to  sleep  with  her — and  once  she  took  her  god. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

WHEN  the  Earl  died,  and  his  income  followed  his 
title  to  a  distant  kinsman,  the  Ladies  Worthing 
looked  about  them  hurriedly  for  something  to  do. 

They  were  penniless  and  plain.  But  they  were  sen- 
sible and  full  of  pluck.  They  had  no  stomach  for 
charity,  and  no  appetite  for  permanent  penury. 

And,  realizing  how  scant  other  capital  they  had,  and 
somewhat  undervaluing  their  sterling  capital  of  per^ 
sonality  and  character,  they  cast  about  them  for  avo- 
cations in  which  their  titles  would  best  count  as  capital. 

Joan  and  Lucy  decided  on  a  bonnet  shop.  They 
began  modestly  enough— they  had  to  begin  modestly 
— in  Putney,  but  by  dint  of  sheer  hard  work  they 
achieved  Kensington  and  a  solid  bank  account  ida  Bays- 
water,  and  after  ten  strenuous,  anxious  years.  Mary 
thought  the  titled  milHner  stunt  overdone — she  said 
— and  besides,  it  needed  heaps  of  talent,  which  no 
Worthing  had  ever  had,  and,  she  added,  she  was  too 
passionately  fond  of  clothes,  above  all  bonnets  and 
hats,  to  be  willing  to  make  her  living  botching  them 
— or,  if  she  learned  to  turn  out  successful  ones,  to  part 
with  them  to  other  women.  She  disliked  most  women, 
almost  as  much  as  men  seemed  to  dislike  her,  al- 
though she  had  some  flair  for  growing  girls.  The 
pretty  ones  intrigued  her,  and  the  plain  ones  pulled 
her  sympathy. 

Lady  Mary  Worthing  decided  to  open  a  girls* 
school. 

151 


152        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Her  sisters  cried  out  shrilly,  her  acquaintance 
mocked,  the  family  solicitors  argued. 

And  moreover,  however  could  she?  That  was  the 
final,  clinching  dissuasion  of  them  all. 

And  it  did  seem  rather  final. 

Lady  Mary  hadn't  the  haziest  idea  how  to  accom- 
plish it,  or  even  of  how  to  begin  trying  to  do  so.  She 
had  very  clear-cut  ideas  of  just  what  manner  of  school 
she  wished  hers  to  be.  No  modest  Putney  begin- 
nings for  her.  Hers  was  to  be  a  fashionable  finishing 
school  near  Belgrave  Square,  very  expensive  and  very 
successful.  Lady  Mary  wished  to  make  a  great  deal 
of  money. 

Lucy  tittered,  and  the  Lady  Joan  screamed  with 
mirth.  Thorndyke,  Hall  and  Thorndyke  shrugged  re- 
lieved blackclad  shoulders,  and  smiled  indulgently.  It 
was  a  harmless  ambition,  and  perfectly  safe,  since  quite 
impossible  of  fulfillment.  Fashionable  finishing  schools 
just  off  Belgrave  Square  require  lavish  monetary  capi- 
tal ;  Lady  Mary  had  none  and  no  means  of  getting  any. 

Quite.     But  Mary  Worthing  did  it. 

How  she  did  it  is  a  not  uninteresting  story.  But 
it  is  her  story,  not  ours.  And  one  passing  hint  must 
suffice.    Lady  Mary  Worthing  had  had  a  Scots  mother. 

She  not  only  did  it,  but  she  made  it  pay,  long 
before  her  scoffing  sisters'  bonnet  shop  did. 

It  was  the  starting  at  all  that  smacked  of  modern 
miracle.  Once  started  the  rest  was  easy  and  simple, 
and  success  a  foregone  conclusion. 

Lady  Mary  had  no  educational  fads — scarcely  an 
educational  theory,  and  none  too  much  education  of 
her  own.  She  played  a  fairish  game  of  bridge,  but 
the  tradesmen's  books  beat  her  every  time.  But  she 
dressed  exquisitely — as  soon  as  she  could — her  man- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         153 

ners  were  both  patrician  and  charming.  She  flattered 
the  parents,  and  she  made  her  girl  pupils  happy,  and 
"turned  them  out"  highly  creditable  both  to  herself 
and  to  the  Court  of  St.  James.  And  it  was  perhaps 
her  best  asset  of  all  that  she  knew  to  a  nicety  whom 
and  what  to  exclude  from  her  teaching  staff,  and  from 
her  list  of  pupils,  and  did  it  rigorously. 

And  to  the  surprise  of  every  one — and  to  the  frank 
and  open  envy  of  her  sisters — she  married.  But, 
though  her  husband  was  no  kinsman,  his  name  was 
Worthing  too,  and  she  felt  it  an  added  advantage  that 
she  need  not  change  her  name  to  achieve  the  coveted 
prefix  of  "Mrs." — though  "Mrs."  understood.  James 
Worthing  was  a  gentleman  and  a  decent,  friendly  soul. 
And  the  tradesmen's  arithmetic  held  no  alarms  for 
him.  He  could  boast  little  more  education  than  his 
wife,  but  he  could  do  shillings  and  pence  and  even 
pounds  and  ounces.  Lack  of  sufficient  means  had 
driven  him  from  the  army — but  his  brief  soldiering 
had  been  creditable,  and  was  an  advantage  to  him  still, 
and  an  advantage  to  his  wife's  school — an  advantage 
of  which  she  made  the  quiet  most — which  was  a  useful 
something  which  no  one  living  could  do  better  or  with 
more  perfect  breeding  than  Lady  Mary  could.  Cap- 
tain James  Worthing  had  been  very  honorably  wounded 
in  the  Boer  War,  and  had  not  only  deserved,  but,  what 
is  rarer,  had  received  the  D.S.O. 

Captain  Worthing  had  secretarial  work  at  the  Chi- 
nese Legation.  He  was  no  sponger  on  his  wife.  And 
he  made  her  a  good  husband.  And  she  rewarded 
him  after  five  years  of  steady  matrimonial  good  con- 
duct on  his  part — hers  goes  without  saying — by  mak- 
ing him  a  proud  parent.  The  welcome  offspring  proved 
— a  little  to  the  dulling  of  his  pride,  and  to  Lady 


154        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Mary's  frank  disgust,  not  only  carrot-haired,  but  twins. 

But  the  boarders  were  as  delighted  as  amused  when 
the  mother  and  her  daughter  and  son  returned  to  Bel- 
grave  Square,  and  the  Chinese  Minister  sent  two  price- 
less christening  cups  of  opalescent  jade. 

No  other  babies  came  to  the  school  near  Belgrave 
Square — and  Lady  Mary  bore  it  placidly,  having 
learned  incidentally  that  for  more  than  a  century  twins 
had  been  very  prevalent  among  the  Trulls.  James 
Worthing  had  had  a  grandmother  whose  maiden  name 
was  Trull.  But  these  two  babies  soon  made  the  school 
a  home.  They  did  not  have  the  run  of  the  class- 
rooms, of  course,  but  they  soon  had  wide  freedom  of 
crawl  at  recreation  hours,  and  many  a  girl  there  then 
owed  a  sweetness  and  a  womanliness,  that  was  her  life- 
long wealth  and  charm,  to  the  fact  that  two  red-headed 
babies  had  crept  into  her  heart,  and  clung  there,  gur- 
gling, contented  and  at  home,  when  she  was  at  board- 
ing school. 

It  was  a  nice  school.  Captain  /Worthing  neither  kept 
unduly  in  the  background,  nor  over  obtruded — ^was  a 
thoroughly  nice  fellow,  and  Lady  Mary  was  a  nice 
woman  and  exceptionally  sane. 

She  ruled  well.    And  she  was  growing  rich. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

DONALD — he  was  almost  five  now,  and  naturally 
Edith  was  too — made  a  fat  dash  for  the  toasting 
fork,  but  Lady  Mary  made  a  quicker  grab  for  his  pina- 
fore, caught  it,  and  wrenched  him  back  and  up  into 
her  lap. 

Elenore  Selwyn  was  toasting  crumpets — none  too 
easy  a  task  even  on  the  wide  grate's  glowing  coals, 
for  at  its  other  end  Justine  du  Bret  was  popping  com. 

This  was  the  girls'  own  hour,  their  time  of  com- 
plete freedom.  This  was  their  sitting  room  and  sanc- 
tum. Here  no  teacher  might  come,  be  her  errand  what 
it  might.  "Home  from  home"  the  girls  called  it.  And 
at  this,  their  hour  of  twilight  sanctuary,  even  Lady 
Mary  never  came  without  special  and  explicit  invita- 
tion. She  was  popular  with  her  charges,  and  careful 
to  keep  her  popularity  and  her  welcome  unworn  and 
cordial — so  careful  that  not  always  would  she  come 
even  when  urged. 

It  was  winter,  crisp  and  clear,  the  sun  just  down, 
and  the  logs  piled  ready  to  lay  on  the  ruddy  coals 
when  the  schoolgirl  cookery  should  be  done. 

"My,  how  good!"  the  mistress  said,  as  she  munched 
the  first  crumpet,  sizzling  hot  and  buttered  thick. 

Baby  Edith  stood  behind  Justine  with  chubby  arms 
about  the  French  girl's  neck,  red  curls  cuddled  on  the 
black.  Edie  meant  to  have  the  first  taste  of  the  pop- 
corn. 

Dorothy  Fielding  was  pouring  the  fragrant  tea. 

155 


156        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

And  a  dozen  or  more  other  girls  lounged  prettily  about 
the  cheerful  room.  They  were  all  licensed  here.  Even 
moderate  slang  came  and  went  unrebuked.  Lady  Mary 
herself  had  been  known  to  drop  a  sly  word  of  it  here 
now  and  then.  And  here  she  never  spoiled  sport.  She 
rarely  spoiled  it  anywhere  needlessly.  Her  policy  was 
far  different. 

When  the  meal  was  nearly  done,  and  a  pause  came 
in  the  chattering,  Lady  Mary  said  suddenly, 

"Shall  I  tell  you  a  story,  girls,  before  I  tote  the 
babies  off  to  bed?" 

They  turned  to  her  expectant,  and  surprised.  She 
did  many  companionable  things  for  them,  and  often. 
But  she  had  never  told  them  a  story  before.  They 
had  not  suspected  story  telling  to  be  among  her  com- 
fortable, straight-cut  gifts.  And  they  were  most  of 
them  rather  old  for  story  teUing. 

"Please,"  the  Infanta  Mercedes  said,  the  first,  as 
always,  to  remember  her  manners  even  here. 

"We  have  a  new  pupil  coming  to-morrow,"  the 
Head  began.  "It  is  very  interesting — quite  like  a  story 
in  a  book,  I  think.  I  am  peculiarly  anxious  to  make 
her  one  of  my  successes — and  that  she  should  be  happy 
here — and  learn  a  great  deal.  And  I  want  you  all 
to  help  me." 

The  tense  interest  of  the  girls  grouped  about  her 
laxed  almost  noticeably.  New  girls  were  no  great 
rarity.  And  they  had  chill  sympathy  with  any  girl 
who  could  be  unhappy  here.  And  there  was  little 
thrill  in  Lady  Mary's  beginning — and  no  promise  of 
anything  novel.  She  always  was  anxious  to  make  you 
one  of  her  very  special  successes,  and  to  have  you 
work  tremendously,  and  learn  lots.    Story,  indeed ! 

Then  she  told  them  Ch'eng  Tzu's  story — as  much 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         157 

of  it  as  she  knew.  Its  vital  core,  the  real  reason  of 
the  girl's  banishment,  Lady  Mary  knew  nothing  of, 
nor  suspected. 

A  little  Chinese  girl,  a  Princess  or  more  in  her  own 
country,  fabulously  rich,  an  orphan  without  one  near 
relative  living,  even  in  China — (the  fall  of  Port  Ar- 
thur had  killed  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin — though  she  had  lived 
more  than  a  year  after  it,  dying  but  a  year  ago)  was 
joining  them  to-morrow,  to  learn  all  that  their  teach- 
ers, Lady  Mary  and  the  girls  themselves,  could  teach 
her.  And  Lady  Mary  begged  for  her  not  only  the 
sufferance,  but  the  friendship  of  the  girls. 

"She  is  very  young,  the  youngest  girl  I  have  ever 
taken — not  quite  thirteen — precocious,  my  cousin 
writes  me,  lovable  when  you  come  really  to  know  her. 
She  may  feel  very  strange  among  us — I  suppose  she 
will — but  perhaps  less  strange  than  we'd  expect,  for 
she  has  been  living  for  two  years,  a  little  more  than 
two,  with  my  cousin,  Mrs.  Ford,  at  the  Rectory,  and 
so  she  already  knows  something  of  quiet  English  coun- 
try ways — but  nothing  of  London.  She  has  never  been 
in  a  city — or  even  a  large  town — in  her  life — not  even 
in  China — except  that  she  must  have  passed  through 
Hong  Kong  and  Liverpool,  when  she  sailed  and  landed. 
She  has  never  been  to  a  function  in  her  life,  more 
exciting  than  a  rectory  croquet  party." 

"Does  she  speak  English,  Lady  Mary  ?" 

"After  two  years  in  an  English  rectory?  Of  course 
she  does,  Elenore.  But  she  has  not  forgotten  her  own 
language — for  she  has  a  friend  with  her,  an  older  girl, 
with  whom  she  has  spoken  Chinese,  for  at  least  an 
hour  every  day." 

"They  boze  come,  Madame?" 

"Try  to  say  your  'th,'  Justine,"  Lady  Mary  re- 


158        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

minded  kindly.  "No,  Miss  Ch'eng  comes  alone.  Miss 
Mung  is  ill,  nothing  much,  and  is  to  stay  with  the 
Fords,  for  the  present.  Be  good  to  her,  girls.  Re- 
member she  is  very  far  from  home — a  stranger  here, 
perhaps  a  stranger  there  too,  when  she  goes  back, 
since  none  of  her  family  is  living.  Be  good  to  her." 
The  last  words  were  a  plea,  and  a  little  anxious.  Mary 
Worthing  knew  how  hard  girls  could  be.  And  on  her 
own  account  she  had  hesitated  seriously  before  con- 
senting to  receive  little  Miss  Ch'eng.  She  had  no 
great  liking  for  Orientals — not  that  she  knew  any  well, 
or  many  at  all.  But  it  had  seemed  an  exceptional 
opportunity  to  show  what  she  could  do.  And  her  am- 
bition as  an  artist  in  "turning  out"  girls  admirably 
had  pricked  her  on  to  this  somewhat  unwelcome,  and 
certainly  difficult,  attempt.  Lady  Mary  was  deeply 
in  love  with  her  work. 

"Do  your  best — I  know  you  will,"  she  said,  with 
just  a  tiny  sigh,  as  she  rose  to  separate  Donald  and 
Edith,  who  were  squabbling  lustily  with  each  other 
for  sole  possession  of  the  pop-corn  popper.  And  when 
she  had  taken  it  from  both  of  them,  and  "toted"  them 
off  to  bed — a  protested  process  always — an  uncordial, 
smoldering  silence  fell  upon  the  room. 

Justine  broke  it.  "Mon  dieu.  I  zink  it  time  I  go 
back  to  France." 

"A  Chink!"  one  English  girl  said  bitterly. 

"Don't  you  think  we'd  better  wait  until  we  see  her  ?" 
Elenore  Selwyn  suggested.  But  there  was  more  British 
love  of  fair  play  than  conviction  in  her  voice.  She 
did  not  say  it  warmly. 

None  of  them  liked  it. 

Several  of  them  were  far  from  home,  exiled  from 
their  own  homes  and  kindred — the  French  and  Spanish 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         159 

girls,  two  Russians,  a  Roumanian  and  a  Cuban.  And 
three  were  orphans. 

These  schoolgirls  were  not  insular.  And  without 
exception  they  were  ladies.  Half  of  them  were  the 
daughters  of  noblemen.  Two  had  fathers  in  the  Cabi- 
net— a  Tory  Cabinet — one  was  the  daughter  of  a  great 
newspaper  owner.  Others  were  the  children  of  diplo- 
mats, generals,  eminent  jurists.  Most  of  them  had 
traveled  and  knew  something  of  the  world — more  than 
one  might  have  boasted  royal  godmothers,  and  three 
had  royal  blood — collateral  but  legitimate. 

But  they  one  and  all  resented  the  coming  of  Ch'eng 
Tzu.  And  no  one  disputed  it  with  a  word  or  look 
when  Marion  Helmsely  said,  with  scornful  finality, 
**I  do  think  we  might  draw  the  line  at  Chinese." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

TF  Lady  Mary,  the  next  day,  was  asked  less  cordially 
"■-  than  she  usually  was,  to  "come  in  to  us,  won't 
you?'*  she  took  no  notice,  and  said  quickly,  **Yes, 
thanks,  I'll  be  there." 

It  was  during  lunch  that  the  invitation  was  given 
and  accepted.  The  Chinese  girl  had  not  come  yet,  and 
no  further  mention  had  been  made  of  her. 

Lady  Mary  came  into  their  sitting  room  later  than 
she  usually  did.  Their  tea  had  been  cleared  away. 
And  she  came  without  the  twins. 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  walked  beside  her — slim  and  tran- 
quil. 

Short  of  being  a  Scandinavian  blonde,  she  scarcely 
could  have  looked  less  like  what  the  girls  had  ex- 
pected. 

Her  skin  was  much  lighter  than  that  of  the  pretty 
Cuban  toasting  chestnuts  at  the  fire,  and  except  for 
her  blue-black  hair,  she  was  less  brunette  than  sev- 
eral of  the  English  girls.  In  the  half  light  of  fire 
and  shaded  lamps  she  scarcely  looked  a  foreigner  in 
that  rather  cosmopolitan  little  gathering. 

Her  hair  looked  dusky,  but  not  over  glossy.  It  was 
free  from  unguents,  braided  closely  about  her  head. 
And  she  carried  no  signal  of  her  fabulous  wealth,  not 
one  gem,  not  so  much  as  a  ribbon.  She  was  dressed 
severely  in  unrelieved  white — the  material  almost 
coarse.  For  she  still  wore  mourning  for  Ch'eng  Yiin 
— the  only  relative  she  had  ever  known. 

i6o 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         161 

From  her  first  coming  she  had  conformed  to  English 
ways  in  almost  every  particular.  She  had  done  it  at 
first  because  her  great-grandmother  had  so  enjoined 
her,  but  soon  had  come  to  like  doing  it.  But  every 
once  in  a  long  while  Beatrice  Ford  had  found  some 
little  point  upon  which  Ch'eng  Tzu  would  not  con- 
form. She  dressed  as  an  English  girl,  excepting  only 
her  shoes — and  they  were  a  compromise — and  that  she 
had  a  passion  for  thrusting  things  in  her  hair — for 
lirst  choice,  jeweled,  beaded  tassels  that  tinkled  and 
shook.  But  she  would  not  wear  black  for  mourning, 
nor  allow  the  coarse,  white  robes  she  chose  to  be 
trimmed  in  any  way.  And  never  a  stick-pin,  a  flower 
or  a  tassel  did  she  wear  in  her  hair  now. 

*'It  scarcely  looks  comfortable,"  Mrs.  Ford  had 
pleaded. 

"It  is  not  intended  to  be  comfortable,"  Tzu  had  told 
her.     "I  do  not  wish  to  be  comfortable — now." 

And  that  had  ended  it. 

The  Infanta  Mercedes  went  up  to  Ch'eng  Tzu,  and 
held  out  her  hand — partly  it  was  good  manners,  partly 
it  was  impulse,  and  there  was  fellowship  in  it  too. 
Beauty  appealed  compellingly  to  Mercedes  always. 
And  she  was  the  first  to  recognize  the  rare  beauty 
of  the  girl  in  the  coarse  white  gown.  Her  princely 
homes  in  Spain  were  rich  in  masterpieces  of  old  por- 
traiture, not  a  few  by  Velasquez  among  them,  and  the 
girl  standing  beside  Lady  Mary  reminded  the  Infanta 
of  the  loveliest  Velasquez  on  the  walls  at  home. 

Tzu  put  her  hand,  it  was  like  a  warm  yellow  rose 
leaf,  in  the  Infanta's  hand,  and  thanked  her  with  a 
smile.  And  when  she  smiled  every  girl  there  saw  her 
beauty:  it  sparkled  through  the  room.  Lady  Mary 
caught  her  breath  at  it,  and  more  than  one  girl  did  too. 


i62        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"I  am  glad  that  you  have  come,"  Mercedes  said,  and 
Elenore  Selwyn  hurried  forward  then,  not  because  she 
was  attracted,  but  because  she  was  a  "good  sort,"  and 
said  heartily,  "Yes,  we  are  very  glad  you  have  come." 

Ch'eng  Tzu  dimpled.  She  rather  wanted  to  say 
"Why?"  But  that  would  have  been  rude,  so,  instead 
she  smiled  again  and  bowed. 

She  rather  doubted  that  they  were  glad  that  she  had 
come — ^yet.  But  she  did  not  resent  it.  For  herself, 
it  scarcely  touched  her,  and  she  was  a  just  soul,  and 
knew  how  little  an  intimate  group  of  Chinese  girls 
would  have  liked  to  have  an  unknown  English  girl 
thrust  among  them,  to  share  all  their  work  and  play, 
and,  no  doubt,  to  interrupt,  if  not  spoil,  their  many 
interests. 

Tzu  sensed  the  embarrassment  that  the  other  girls 
were  too  socially  accustomed  to  show.  But  it  was 
there,  and  Tzu  knew  it  was,  and  rather  pitied  it.  She 
was  accustomed  to  it — in  others — here  in  England.  In 
the  quiet  country  rectory  and  countryside,  she  had 
grown  used  to  noticing  that  every  one  or  group  to 
wl:om  Mrs.  Ford  had  introduced  her  was  awkwardly 
embarrassed.  And  it  had  always  amused  her  greatly. 
It  did  now.    But  of  that  she  gave  no  sign. 

"Do  you  like  England?"  Elenore  asked  desperately. 

"Very  much,"  Tzu  replied  truthfully,  not  allowing 
herself  to  smile — too  much.    But  her  eyes  danced. 

There  was  an  awkward  pause. 

Hector  broke  it. 

He  stalked  across  the  room,  and  rubbed  ingrati- 
atingly against  Ch'eng  Tzu. 

She  bent  down  and  took  him  in  her  arms,  and  sitting 
down  put  him  on  her  lap.     And  he  began  to  purr. 

Hector  had  broken  the  ice. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         163 

"Well!     I  never!"  Lady  Mary  said. 

"I'm  blowed!"  a  girl  confided  to  her  chum. 

No  one  had  ever  heard  Hector  purr  before.  No 
one  had  ever  been  allowed  to  nurse  him  before,  since 
he  was  a  very  young  kitten.  And  never  before  had 
any  one  been  allowed  to  push  friendship  to  the  strok- 
ing point,  inside  an  acquaintance  of  some  months. 

Lady  Mary  explained  all  this,  and  added,  "I  think 
you  must  be  a  witch.  Miss  Ch'eng." 

"So  ?"  Tzia  laughed.  "I  think  it  is  just  your  English 
cat  that  is  very  kind,  and  such  a  gentleman,  that  he 
too  makes  me  welcome."  She  lifted  the  big  beastie, 
and  cuddled  his  head  against  her  radiant,  pomegranate 
face,  looking  across  him  laughingly. 

Lady  Mary — the  least  psychic  of  women — ^had  a 
quick  prevision  of  what  a  sensation  this  Chinese  girl 
might  make  when  the  time  came  to  introduce  her. 
Lady  Mary  hoped  she  might  be  able  to  present  Ch'eng 
Tzu  herself.  It  would  be  a  noble  advertisement  for 
Che  school — although  happily  it  needed  none — and  it 
would  be  a  personal  pleasure.  How  would  not  a  girl 
look  when  dressed  to  the  greatest  advantage  who  was 
so  exquisitely  lovely  in  that  shapeless,  almost  hempen, 
thing?  In  brocades  and  tissues  and  jewels — and  the 
Lady  Mary  Worthing  was  glad — rather  meanly — to 
remember  that  the  Chinese  Minister's  wife  was  not  in 
England,  to  insist  perhaps  upon  presenting  Miss  Ch'eng 
herself. 

When  the  dressing-bell  rang,  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  made 
three  friends,  the  Infanta  Mercedes,  Lady  Mary  and 
Hector. 

And  one  of  them  had  gained  a  friend.    Hector  had 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

TN  the  next  five  years  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  had  many 
^  experiences,  and  made  many  acquaintances — not 
friends.  The  fault  was  hers,  perhaps — for  always 
something  held  her  back. 

She  stayed  nearly  three  years  at  Belgrave  Square 
— it  wasn't  exactly  Belgrave  Square,  but  near  enough 
to  claim  the  hall  mark — and  spent  two  on  the  conti- 
nent. 

As  soon  as  the  girls  forgave  her  for  being  Chi- 
nese— and  they  did  it  far  sooner  than  they  had  in- 
tended, or  quite  approved  of — she  grew  popular,  and 
several  of  them  loved  her.  But  Tzu  never  attached 
herself  to  any  one  to  the  others'  exclusion,  and,  un- 
less a  little  to  the  Spanish  Mercedes,  scarcely  to  any 
one  more  than  to  the  others.  It  was  not  that  she 
held  herself  aloof.  It  was  not  that  she  was  unfriendly. 
She  was  bright,  gay  and  obliging  always — half  the 
life  and  merriment  of  the  London  house.  And,  if 
they  all  grew  to  like  her,  and  some  to  love  her,  she 
grew,  if  a  little  more  slowly — to  like  most  of  them. 
They  were  nice  girls.  And  she  met  all  their  many 
kindnesses  more  than  halfway  and  cordially.  In  their 
different  ways — after  the  first  strangeness  and  re- 
pulsion wore  off — they  were  very  good  to  Chinese 
Tzu,  and  for  every  kindness  she  was  radiantly  grateful. 

Under  sufficient  provocation  the  Chinese  are  capable 
of  great  and  ruthless  cruelty.  Often  their  vengeance 
is  venomous  and  implacable.    But  no  Chinese  is  capable 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         165 

of  ingratitude.  Not  even  Europe  or  European  ex- 
ample can  inoculate  them  with  it. 

Ch*eng  Tzu  was  grateful  to  every  one  at  Belgrave 
Square,  but  not  one  of  them  ever  knew  what  she 
really  thought  of  them.  Lady  Mary,  several  of  the 
teachers,  and  the  acuter  girls,  wondered  about  it  very 
much,  but  they  never  learned.  She  gave  no  hint,  and 
she  treated  all  alike. 

She  laughed  and  romped  delicately,  she  danced  and 
sang,  she  worked  tremendously,  she  tossed  back  jest 
for  jest,  and  lavished  gift  for  gift.  But  in  some  in- 
tangible way  she  seemed  to  live  apart,  her  personality 
thinly,  delicately  veiled. 

Even  to  Panii  she  expressed  no  preference  for  one 
schoolmate  above  another.  Mung  Panii  had  joined  her 
at  Lady  Mary's  soon  after  her  own  arrival. 

Panii  hated  all  English  and  all  things  English  vio- 
lently— and  said  so  when  she  dared,  which  was  not 
often.  Tzu  commanded  silence,  and  the  slave  girl 
obeyed.  To  Panu,  Ch'eng  Tzu  spoke  only  of  China 
and  in  Chinese  when  they  were  alone,  as  they  often 
were.  They  shared  a  room.  And  never  to  any  one 
else,  if  she  could  help  it,  did  she  speak  of  China. 

"Probably  has  forgotten  all  about  the  rummy  place, 
and  doesn't  like  to  say  so.  She  was  only  ten  when  she 
left,  you  know,"  Laura  Kingsland  said  once  to  Inez, 
and  Tzu,  overhearing  by  accident,  laughed  softly  to 
herself. 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  not  forgotten  China.  She 
grew  each  day  more  at  home  in  England.  Month  by 
month  she  found  some  new  thing  to  like  and  respect 
in  the  English  about  her.  But  always  she  felt  the 
liand  of  far-off  China  on  her  shoulder.  Almost  it 
seemed  that  each  year  she  remembered  her  ov/n  coun* 


i66        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

try  the  more,  and  the  more  acutely,  though  each  year 
certainly  weaned  her  more  and  more  to  the  foster 
arms  of  England.  But  between  the  country  that  she 
remembered  and  the  country  in  which  she  lived  she 
made  few  comparisons  to  China's  disadvantage.  And 
twice  she  let  a  proud  word  slip  that  favored  China. 

In  her  first  year  at  Lady  Mary's  a  recalcitrant  ser- 
vant, dismissed  for  rudeness,  created  a  scene,  thrust 
herself  into  the  room  where  girls  and  mistresses  sat 
chatting,  threatened  Lady  Mary,  hurling  at  hef 
scurrilous,  insolent  abuse,  and  the  crushing  pronounce- 
ment, "Call  yourself  a  lady!  You're  no  lady!"  Some 
of  the  girls  were  amused,  some  frightened,  others — as 
Lady  Mary  was — merely  coldly  angry.  One  mistress 
waxed  hysterical.  Ch'eng  Tzu  grew  pale  with  fury, 
and  her  astonishment  struck  an  unconsidered  comment 
from  her  usually  careful  lips. 

Mercedes  said  to  her,  "How  abominable!'* 

And  Ch'eng  Tzii  replied,  "It  could  not  have  hap^ 
pened  in  China." 

But  it  could  have  happened  in  China — or  something 
very  like  it — and  often  did.  For  in  middle-class  China 
a  dismissed  servant  may  stand  just  inside  your  gate- 
way all  day,  and  curse  you  shrilly,  and,  if  a  woman, 
not  infrequently  does.  But  Tzu  never  had  heard  it 
Such  things  did  not  happen  under  the  rule  of  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin. 

Some  months  later,  Laura  Kingsland — as  highly 
bom  as  any  English  girl  there — offended  Tzu's  Chi- 
nese taste  far  more  than  the  harridan  servant  had 
done. 

Laura  was  easily  the  beauty  of  the  school — with 
lights  of  sheer  gold  in  her  rippling  hair,  eyes  blue  as 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         167 

gentians,  soft  English  roses  in  the  snow  of  an  almost 
perfect  patrician  face. 

Balked  of  some  indulgence  she  asked,  one  day  when 
her  parents  had  come  to  tea,  Laura  was  openly  rude 
to  her  mother,  a  white-haired  woman  as  lovely  as  the 
girl. 

Again  the  Infanta  Mercedes  commented,  and  again 
to  Tzu. 

* 'Laura  is  like  a  peasant  cat.  She  ought  to  be 
beaten,'*  the  Infanta  said. 

"It  could  not  have  happened  in  China,"  Tzu  said 
proudly. 

"Nor  in  Spain,"  Mercedes  added  quickly. 

But  for  this  twice,  whatever  Ch'eng  Tzu  may  some- 
times have  thought,  no  one  ever  heard  her  reflect 
on  any  English  trait,  nor  on  any  one  English. 

She  listened.  She  watched.  She  chatted.  But  all 
her  chatting  was  impersonal. 

Mung  Panii  lived  in  the  school  household  just  as 
Tzu  did.  Esprit  de  corps  was  one  of  Lady  Mary's 
planks.  No  distinctions  between  the  pupils  were  ever 
made  at  her  school.  And  under  her  roof  the  Chinese 
mistress  and  the  Chinese  maid  lived  on  a  parity.  But 
the  Chinese  difference  between  them  neither  ever  for- 
got. Tzu  ruled,  and  was  absolute.  That  they  ate 
together,  worked  together,  and  slept  almost  side  by 
side  did  not  strike  them  as  strange  or  inappropriate. 
Chinese  mistress  and  maid  often  share  their  rice,  and 
bend  over  the  same  embroidery  frame. 

Lady  Mary  took  "Miss  Ch'eng"  about  with  her  a 
great  deal.  She  always  took  the  older  girls  out  with 
her  a  good  deal — a  part  of  their  preparation  for  their 
social  duties  to  come.    And  it  had  been  clearly  stipu- 


i68        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

lated  that  she  was  to  show  Tzu  as  much  as  possible 
of  EngHsh  hfe.  "She  had  been  educated  in  Qiina 
and,  if  necessary,  her  education  would  be  completed 
in  China."  And  it  was  English  ways  that  Madame 
Ch'eng  wished  her  great-granddaughter  taught,  and 
would  pay  to  have  her  taught. 

Lady  Mary  sniffed  a  little  at  the  idea  of  a  girl  of 
ten  having  been  educated,  and  educated  in  China,  but 
she  made  the  desired  bargain,  and  kept  it  staunchly. 
And  she  soon  became  very  keen  to  take  Tzu  about  with 
her.  The  girl  was  charming  and  charmingly  behaved, 
and  her  quaint  appearance  seemed  an  attraction.  Lady 
Mary,  in  spite  of  her  chic  clothes,  had  never  been 
spectacular  herself,  and  she  found  the  small  social 
eruption  Tzu's  entrance  always  caused,  tonic  and  grati- 
fying. 

Mung  Panii  never  vsent  out  with  them.  She  stayed 
behind,  in  their  own  room,  and  burned  joss  sticks. 
But  there  was  nothing  startling  in  that,  for  half  the 
idle  women  in  London  burned  joss  sticks  by  now. 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  studied  in  the  ordinary  way  too — 
and  she  read  many  books.  Study  is  a  Chinese  instinct, 
and  the  Chinese  reverence  books.  Confucius  said, 
"You  can  never  open  a  book  without  learning  some- 
thing." If  that  is  true,  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  must  have 
learned  and  stored  a  very  great  deal  during  these  years. 
For  she  had  a  Chinese  memory,  the  most  wonderful 
of  all  memories. 

After  Belgrave  Square  she  traveled  on  the  continent 
for  two  years — seeing  all  the  usual  places  and  many 
that  were  unusual.  She  lingered  where  she  was  most 
interested,  and  was  presented  and  greatly  vouched 
for,  at  Rome,  Madrid,  St.  Petersburg,  Berlin  and 
Bucharest. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         169 

When  Tzu  came  back  to  England,  Lady  Mary  had 
her  old  wish.  Lady  Mary  Worthing  presented  her  old 
pupil — Miss  Ch'eng — to  the  English  Queen. 

Ch'eng  Tzii  was  her  own  mistress  now.  Before 
dying,  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  decreed  it  so,  and  none  of 
the  old  woman's  scattered  progeny,  absorbed  into  other 
clans  now,  had  wished  to  dispute  it,  or  had  had  powet 
to  do  so.  It  was  not  unheard  of  for  Chinese  girls  to 
be  so  placed,  though  more  a  Manchu  than  a  Chinese 
custom.  From  Tzu's  birth,  her  great-grandmother  had 
determined  the  long-desired  girl  to  be  the  next  chiei 
of  the  Ch'engs,  and  there  could  be  no  question  that 
at  Ch'eng  Yiin's  death,  Ch'eng  Yiin's  suzerainty  had 
passed  to  Ch'eng  Tzu.  The  details  of  the  girl's  Euro- 
pean school-days,  and  of  her  school-days'  gi^iardian- 
ship,  Yiin  had  provided,  and  to  evade  or  neglect  any 
item  of  that  provision  no  more  occurred  to  Ch'eng 
T*ien  Tzu  than  it  occurred  to  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  to 
make  her  heir  a  ward-in-chancery,  or  any  Chinese 
equivalent  of  it.  She  had  hoped  to  live  to  greet  Tzii  on 
Tzu's  home  return,  and  to  guide  the  earlier  years  of 
her  re-Chinesed  days,  letting  the  girl  study  and  even 
somewhat  share  her  own  methods  of  rule.  But  she  had 
realized  how  precarious  her  own  hold  on  life  grew,  and 
she  had  let  life  slip,  and  her  own  hold  relax,  content 
that  Tzu  would  follow  her  will  in  all  things,  and  in  her 
footsteps.  The  King  is  dead.  Long  live  the  King! 
The  crown  and  the  regency  never  die.  As  little  could 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Ch'engs,  or  its  queenship  change. 
As  she  had  been,  Tzu  would  be.  As  she  had  done, 
Tzu  would  do.  As  she  had  reigned  and  served,  Tzu 
would  reign  ana  serve. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  looked  to  Europe  to  do  much 
for  Tzii,  and  through  Tzu  do  much  for  China,  usii^ 


170        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

the  bitter  ingredient  of  a  disliked  alien  race  to  medicine 
China,  as  a  pharmacologist  employs  bitter  drugs  to 
purge  a  distraught  human  frame.  But  Ytin  had  taken 
no  heed,  turned  no  thought,  to  what  Europe  might  do 
to  Tzu.  To  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  seed  was  everything, 
soil  but  little,  and  foreign  soil  less  than  nothing.  She 
knew  that  transplanted  flowers  altered  in  vigor  and 
in  character,  but  to  her  it  was  inconceivable  that  pa- 
trician Chinese  seed  could  develop  in  any  way  along 
new  lines,  be  its  transplantation  what  it  might.  Camel- 
lias— and  tangerines  might  change  their  tints — or  even 
deteriorate — but  not  a  Ch'eng.  The  Ch'eng  was  im- 
mutable, absolute,  fixed.  From  Europe  Ch'eng  Shao 
Yiiin  feared  much  for  China.  But  she  feared  it  not  at 
all  for  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu.  Among  her  friends  were 
several  who  had  lived  in  Europe,  and  Europe  had 
tainted  none  of  them.  Sheng  Liu  had  lived  there,  and 
China  had  no  son  more  Chinese  than  he. 

Several  things  led  Ch'eng  Tzu  to  linger  still  in  Eng- 
land after  her  program  that  her  great-grandmother 
had  mapped  out  had  been  quite  performed. 

England  tempted  her. 

She  shrank  from  returning  orphaned  and  detached 
to  an  altered  China. 

And  there  had  been  no  clear  limit  named  to  her 
stay.  She  was  to  go  to  school.  She  was  to  travel. 
And  she  was  to  see  and  study  English  life.  So 
much  Ch'eng  Yiin  had  said  clearly.  But  she  had  in- 
dicated no  dates  except  the  date  of  the  girl's  departure 
from  home.  It  was  not  Ch'eng  Yiin's  way  to  an- 
nounce a  date  until  that  date  had  come. 

She  was  to  go  home.  Of  course! — She  intended 
to  go  home.  But  Ch'eng  Yiin  was  not  waiting  for 
her  there — ^and,  for  that  and  other  reasons,  she  saw 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         171' 

no  need  to  hurry.  And  her  own  inclination  gave  her 
no  spur,  but  held  her  rather  here  where  she  had  ac- 
quaintances— she  had  none  in  China — and  where  she 
had  spent  more  than  half  her  life.  For  she  was  twenty 
and  a  month. 

So  she  took  a  little  house  in  Mayfair,  furnished  it, 
and  gathered  a  household  about  her,  a  household  of 
English  servants.  Panii  was  the  only  Chinese  in  Tzu's 
entourage.  And  she  engaged  a  chaperon  so  in  every 
way  impeccable  that  her  salary  ran  into  so  large  a 
sum  that  almost  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  might  have  been 
said  to  nave  bought  her. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  Chinese  concentrate  and  they  specialize:  two 
of  the  secrets  of  their  general  efficiency,  content 
and  success.  As  individuals  they  arrive,  because  on 
their  paths  of  life  they  so  rarely  turn  aside — they 
pause  to  gather  many  a  wayside  flower,  but  they  do 
not  turn  off  into  side  paths  to  seek  such  blossoming, 
still  less  retrace  their  steps.  They  go  straight  on,  and 
they  rarely  reach  a  cul  de  sac. 

Had  Ch'eng  T*ien  Tzu  been  now  in  China  her  life 
would  have  been  direct  and,  in  a  superficial  sense,  cir- 
cumscribed. She  would  have  done  one  set  of  things : 
the  things  at  once  fitting  her  station  and  indicative  of 
it.  She  would  have  known  one  dual  set  of  people, 
the  equals  of  her  natural  entourage,  and  its  servitors 
and  dependents. 

But  in  London  she  lived  more  diversely.  There 
she  would  have  had  her  niche,  and  filled  it.  Here  ^he 
was  a  looker-on,  and  she  looked  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left,  far  and  wide,  pausing — and  straying  off — to- 
look  longest  at  whatever  most  amused  her,  as  well  as 
at  what  interested  her  most.  But  the  distinction  must 
be  admitted  a  little  hypocritical,  for  with  her  character- 
istically Chinese  sense  of  humor,  whatever  amused 
keenly  interested.  Little  came  amiss  to  her  young 
curiosity,  nothing  long  or  greatly  balked  her  inherited 
gift  for  analysis. 

In  China  she  could  have  met  on  any  parity,  with 
any  freedom  or  cordiality  of  intercourse,  only  one  very 

172 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         173 

limited  class — women  of  her  own  caste.  In  London 
she  met  "everybody"  now,  and  in  the  easy  "give  and 
take"  of  social  intercourse  rubbed  shoulders  of  per- 
sonality with  many  sorts  and  conditions  of  women — • 
and  men. 

Her  wealth,  the  rank  of  her  sponsors  and  her  car- 
riage were  her  password  into  high  and  guarded  places. 
Her  baffling  personality,  the  uniqueness  of  her  appear- 
ance, of  her  story,  of  her  entertainment — and  of  her 
loveliness,  made  her  popular  in  the  better  class  Bo- 
hemia so  extraordinarily  on  the  increase  in  London 
— increase  of  numbers,  of  influence,  and  probably  of 
permanence. 

Miss  Ch'eng  became  a  fashion  and  a  rage — no  high 
achievement  perhaps  in  a  milieu  that  has  idolized  an 
aged  cowboy,  and  welcomed  mountebanks  and  boors, 
a  satiated  society  that  prefers  eccentricity  to  the  best 
conventionality,  and  to  dance  (so  called)  in  public 
restaurants — under  the  gaze  of  any  who  can  pay  the 
price — rather  than  to  talk  quietly  in  cool,  private 
places. 

Of  what  she  thought  of  it  all  she  gave  no  indica- 
tion. No  one  knew,  not  even  Mung  Panii.  But  now 
and  then  some  man,  traveled  and  experienced  in  his 
country's  civil  service,  wondered.  And  Sheng  Liu  tried 
several  times  to  find  out — in  vain  and  anxiously. 

She  entertained  sumptuously,  but  in  European  fash- 
ion. The  rooms  in  which  she  received  her  guests  were 
furnished  in  accordance  with  European  custom,  but 
more  sparsely  and  more  beautifully  than  can  be  claimed 
to  be  in  strict  accordance  with  European  taste.  But 
tucked  away  in  odd  parts  of  the  house  were  little 
strongholds  of  Chinese  decoration  and  furnishing. 
And  Lady  Mary  knew — and  Mrs.  Marston  suspected 


174        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

— that  whoever  was  welcomed  into  one  of  them  had 
gained  Tzu's  respect  and  something  warmer  than  the 
sunny  coldness  which  was  all  she  gave  or  showed 
to  most.  Lady  Mary  believed  that  that  sunniness  was 
a  manner  and  a  courtesy,  the  coldness  a  fact  and  a 
conviction. 

She  dressed  as  an  Englishwoman — with  a  deft  dif- 
ference that  was  more  individuality  and  love  of  the 
beautiful  than  Chinese.  And  too  she  wore  her  English 
clothes  with  a  difference.  They  hung  always.  They 
never  clung.  Lady  Mary  knew  that  she  wore  always, 
day  and  night — usually,  but  not  always,  inside  her 
gown — an  exquisite  bit  of  jade.  Panii  knew  that  it 
was  a  niyie — but  not  that  Ch'eng  Chii-po  had  given 
it  long  ago  to  Ch'eng  Ting  Tzu. 

As  a  schoolgirl  she  had  worn  shoes  and  slippers 
that  copied  somewhat  English  shoes.  But  now  she 
always  wore  Chinese  shoes — tiny,  embroidered,  jeweled 
things,  that  peeped  out  from  her  English  skirts  with 
an  emphatic  note  of  Cathay  and  of  the  history  of  its 
women. 

And  London  never  wearied  of  marveling  at  what 
the  girl's  maimed  fragments  of  feet  could  do  in  those 
tiny,  padded  shoes.  She  played  tennis  in  them.  She 
skated  in  them.  She  danced  in  them — quadrilles  and 
minuets.  No  man  had  ever  put  his  arm  about  Ch'eng 
T'ien  Tzu,  or  touched  more  than  her  fingers'  irre- 
sponsive tips — and  scarcely  any  English  woman.  The 
Worthing  twins  had  kissed  her  as  babies,  and  Tzu  had 
suffered  it.  Edith  kissed  her  still — sometimes.  But 
Tzu  had  never  kissed  them.  She  abhorred  the  very 
sight  of  kissing,  and  this  oriental  instinct  she  wore 
about  her  as  a  veil.    And,  for  all  her  bared  face,  the 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         175 

girl  seemed  veiled  in  several  ways,  definable  some, 
others  indefinable. 

She  dressed  her  black  hair  very  simply  and  to  a 
smoothness  that  was  never,  but  for  one  brief  season, 
fashionable  in  modem  London.  But  Ch'eng  Tzu  still 
loved  to  stick  flowers  in  her  hair,  and  to  hang  jewels 
from  it.  Lady  Mary's  babies  had  loved — when  Tzu 
put  her  mourning  off — to  play  with  the  tassels  dan- 
gling from  above  the  tiny  jeweled  ears.  All  babies 
loved  to  do  it,  and  still  many  did.  Every  baby  adored 
Miss  Ch'eng,  and  made  free  of  her.  Old  people  loved 
her — wooed  to  it  probably  by  her  unfailing  Chinese 
deference  to  their  years.  Animals  and  birds  were  her 
veriest  creatures.  Wild  home-sick  things  came  to  her 
at  the  Zoo,  and  looked  at  her  with  appealing  eyes.  And 
on  the  Embankment  and  the  Terrace  at  St.  Stephen'^ 
gulls  had  eaten  from  her  hand. 

Doncaster  House,  built  when  git)und  in  London  cost 
less  than  now,  was  big  and  roomy.  A  regiment  might 
have  been  billeted  in  the  wide  hall  alone.  But  in  to- 
night's super-crush.  Lady  Doncaster,  panting  in  a  pur- 
ple dress,  and  with  a  purple  face,  was  wedged  tight 
among  her  suffocated  guests.  Her  diamonds  looked 
red  with  heat — all  the  jewels  looked  hot,  and  the 
crammed  flowers  were  cooked — by  electricity.  Even 
Miss  Ch'eng's  long  rope  of  pearls  looked  warm  against 
her  gown  of  silver  brocade,  and  the  tassels  of  smaller 
pearls  hanging  from  her  hair,  and  the  great  pear-shaped 
pearl  on  her  forehead  looked  pink  and  winked  warmly, 
more  like  the  baubles  of  a  geisha  than  the  proud,  im- 
perial things  they  were.  But  the  girl  herself  looked 
cool.    Tzu  liked  the  heat,  and  had  no  need  to  use  her 


176        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

little  fan — which  was  as  well,  for  there  was  no  elbow* 
room  in  Doncaster  House  to-night.  Here  and  there 
the  pattern  of  her  silver-threaded  brocade  was  touched 
with  tiny  beads  of  steel.  Her  long  sleeves  were  thickly 
sewn  with  jewels  of  many  colors.  London  had  never 
seen  Miss  Ch'eng's  arms — not  even  at  Buckingham 
Palace.  To-night,  even  in  this  hot  crush,  a  number  of 
women  wore  velvet,  and  hot-hued  velvet — but  no  other 
woman  would  have  thought  to  wear  fur.  But  the 
chinchilla,  wastefully  cut  into  a  design  of  curving 
scrolls,  appliqued  on  the  hem  of  Ch'eng  Tzu's  skirt, 
looked  cool  and  light.  Her  toilet  conceded  nothing  to 
the  heat. 

Her  manner  conceded  nothing  to  the  crush,  or  to 
those  that  made  it.  Seven  years  ago,  in  her  coarse 
dress  of  mourning  white,  her  beauty  had  sparkled  in 
the  school-house  room.  To-night  it  looked  a  softer 
beauty,  the  pale  glimmering  of  a  moonstone.  And 
her  slow  progress  through  the  hot  rooms  was  still  and 
cold.  Mrs.  Marston,  white-haired,  white-govmed,  was 
the  more  compelling  figure  of  the  two,  and  not  be- 
cause of  her  greater  inches. 

John  Selwyn  stopped  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Marston,  but 
did  not  even  see  the  girl  beside  her,  to  whom  the  Aus- 
trian Ambassador  was  speaking.  Lord  Ash  ford  was 
leaving  as  Mrs.  Marston  and  the  girl  came  in.  But 
Miss  Ch'eng  saw  Ashford,  and  turned  a  little  and 
watched  him  as  he  chatted  with  her  chaperon.  The 
astute  and  practiced  diplomatist  neither  saw  nor  sus- 
pected the  interest  in  Tzu's  eyes.  It  was  the  sudden 
interest  of  a  Chinese  woman,  and  only  Chinese  eyes 
could  have  pierced  to  it.  And  Chinese  eyes  did.  A 
Chinese,  dressed,  like  Miss  Ch'eng,  in  European  clothes, 
watching  her  intently,  standing  near,  but  not  waiting 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         177 

or  wishing  to  speak  to  her,  saw  it  almost  before  it 
glinted  slightly  in  her  eyes  and  across  her  immovaWe 
face.  And  seeing  it,  Wang  No  frowned,  and  his  deli- 
cate hand  tightened  on  his  fob. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  saw  her  countryman  a  moment  later, 
and  sent  him  a  Chinese  salutation  with  her  fan.  And 
^t  that  he  had  to  come  to  her.  He  bowed  before  her 
coldly,  and  waited  for  her  to  speak. 

"Good-evening,'*  Tzii  said,  smiling  for  the  first  time 
that  night — Miss  Ch'eng's  smiles  were  few,  and  they 
were  home-keeping.  "I  sent  you  a  message  by  Sheng 
Liu,  Mr.  Wang,  did  he  not  deliver  it?  I  told  him  to 
ask  you  to  call  on  us." 

Again  Wang  No  bowed  ceremoniously.  * 'Thrice 
honorable,"  he  said,  answering  her  in  their  native 
tongue,  "the  noble  gray  beard  gave  thy  contemptible 
slave  thy  gracious  command." 

"Which  you  have  disobeyed,"  the  girl  said  with  an 
amused  shrug,  and  speaking  still  in  English. 

The  man  bowed. 

Tzu  gave  him  a  level  look.  She  could  not  have 
eyed  him  so  in  China.  But  then  in  China  she  could 
not  have  taken  speech  or  heed  of  him  at  all.  She  often, 
but  with  discretion,  gave  acquaintances  permission  to 
visit  her,  but  she  never  invited  them.  That  this  so 
excepted  man  refused  to  come — it  amounted  to  that — 
amused  her,  but  did  not  vex  her,  for  she  was  a  girl, 
and  she  knew  the  reason  of  his  refusal,  and  knew 
that  now  as  he  stood  before  her,  angry,  disapproving, 
imperturbable  and  seeming  cold,  his  blood  was  throb- 
bing wildly  in  his  veins,  and  his  Chinese  heart  pound- 
ing sickly  an  old  and  world-universal  agony  beneath 
a  well-cut,  white  English  waistcoat. 

"But  I  intend  you  to  come,  Mr.  Wang.    So  I  sup- 


178        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

pose  I  must  get  Mrs.  Marston  to  ask  you.  You  cannot 
refuse  to  obey  a  woman  of  her  years,  and  a  sash- 
wearer." 

"There  are  no  sash-wearers  among  these  foreign- 
ers, jade-Hke  maiden,"  he  said  coldly,  speaking  again 
in  Chinese,  "and  thy  contemptible  worm  can  disobey 
any  Englishwoman." 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  laughed — a  tinkled  laugh  that  was 
music,  and  had  a  sweet,  soft  tang  of  wild  honey.  Her 
laugh  was  less  rare  than  her  faint  moonlight  smile. 
But  several  men  turned  toward  her  at  it  as  she  moved 
slowly  on  with  a  tiny  gesture  of  her  fan  which  he 
could  not  disobey.  And  Wang  moved  beside  her  re- 
luctantly, Tzu  chatting  to  him  almost  merrily,  in  Eng- 
lish, which  he  answered,  as  briefly  as  he  could,  cere- 
moniously and  always  in  Chinese. 

*Why  are  you  angry  with  me,  Mr.  Wang?"  she 
teased  him  presently.  She  was  incapable  of  bantering 
with  any  Englishman.  But  she  took  a  naughty  and 
a  very  girlish  satisfaction  in  flaunting  this  country- 
man of  hers  here  in  London,  to  whom  she  could  not 
have  spoken,  scarcely  permitted  herself  to  think  of,  at 
home. 

She  had  scarcely  expected  him  to  evade  her  ques- 
tion. Evasion  is  not  a  Chinese  habit,  though  igno- 
rance proclaims  it  so  loudly.  But  his  answer  cam^ 
more  blunt  than  she  had  expected. 

"Because  you  are  here." 

"At  Doncaster  House?     Or  in  England?" 

"Both." 

A  naughty  pleasure  rippled  on  her  mobile  face,  and 
she  turned  it  to  him  squarely.  It  was  her  rule,  as 
well  as  her  habit,  to  bear  an  impassive  face  abroad. 
Only  Panii  often  saw  expression  on  it.    But  she  chose 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         17^ 

to  toss  even  that  veil  carelessly  aside  now  with  Wang 
No,  and  no  face  is  more  mobile  or  more  expressive 
than  a  Chinese  woman's  face  so  unveiled.  It  was  an 
unveiled  face  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  turned  to  Wang  No. 
And  her  eyes — wide  open  for  once — ^were  dancing. 

"My  honorable  great-grandmother,"  but  still  speak- 
ing EngHsh,  "decreed  it.'' 

"I  know "  his  Chinese  words  were  longer  and 

richly  dressed  with  ceremonial  courtesies  and  humble 
salutations — but  his  tone  was  crisp  and  hard.  "But  I 
believe  that  the  most  honorable  noble  Lady  Ch'eng 
Shao  Yiin  would  think  your  task  here  now  quite  done, 
and  would  wish  you  to  go  home." 

"Why  do  you  stay?" 

"The  Son  of  Heaven  commands  it.  My  honorable 
father  commands  it."  It  was  answer  doubly  enough 
for  any  Chinese  to  make,  for  any  Chinese  to  hear. 
"But  I  go  soon,"  he  added. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  shifted  a  little.  "I  like  England," 
she  said  lightly. 

Wang  No  said  nothing,  but  his  eyes  said  that  he 
believed  and  hoped  that  she  lied.  And  Tzii  laughed 
again,  and  mocked  him  delicately  with  her  fan. 

"And,"  she  told  him,  just  a  little  sadly,  "I  might 
feel  strange  at  home — after  all  these  banished  years. 
I  should  be  lonely  at  home — now." 

"Banished,  indeed!"  the  man  exclaimed.  "I  think 
you  would  not  feel  strange,  at  home — could  not.  Or 
if  you  did,  it  would  soon  pass.  And  you  need  not  be 
alone  there  long." 

Ch'eng  Tzu  veiled  her  eyes  with  their  lids,  to  hide 
their  quick  triumph.  Wang  No  had  "declared"  him- 
self. Defiled — as  she  knew  he  held  her  by  her  English 
sojourn  and  junketing — English  acquaintance,  unveiled 


Mi8o        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

face,  unmaidenly  practices,  continental  journey ings,  yet 
would  Wang  No,  if  they  were  both  again  in  China,  if 
his  father  consented,  send  the  matchmaker  to  her.  And 
it  was  no  small  triumph.  A  Chinese  does  not  often 
offer  himself  and  his  sons  to  a  woman  of  whom  he 
disapproves. 

"Perhaps!  Who  knows?"  she  said  hghtly,  and  re- 
leased him  with  a  courteous  twist  of  the  wrist  that 
held  her  tiny  fan  of  jeweled  gauze,  and  turned  to  greet 
an  English  acquaintance. 

She  greeted  many  during  the  next  hour,  and  let  one 
bring  her  an  ice.  As  she  listened  and  replied,  now 
to  one,  now  to  another,  she  kept  wondering  who  the 
man  was  that  had  gone  away  so  soon  after  speaking 
to  Mrs.  Marston.     Ch'eng  Tzu  had  watched  him  go. 

At  midnight  she  chanced  again  on  Wang  No. 

She  spoke  to  him  in  Chinese,  and  at  it  his  eyes  leapt 
to  hers,  and  his  hand  clenched  upon  his  fob,  and  Ch'eng 
Tzu,  seeing  and  understanding,  added  something 
quickly  in  English — for  the  minx  was  not  unkind,  and 
she  was  highly  bred. 

They  sauntered,  walking  as  best  they  could,  through 
the  still  thickening  crowd,  toward  a  litle  sheltered  room 
where  palms  grouped  about  a  fountain.  Tzu  parted 
the  thick  curtains  that  screened  the  doorway  of  the 
hidden  nook  from  the  dense  throng  of  guests,  and 
Wang  followed  her. 

But  the  tiny  pleasance  was  already  tenanted. 

Ch*eng  Tzu's  scrap  of  padded  shoe  made  no  sound, 
and  Wang's  light  English  evening  shoes  made  scarcely 
more.     The  well-born  Chinese  are  light  of  tread. 

Tzu  stiffened  and  stood  stock  still.  Wang  No  saw 
almost  as  soon,  and  he  pushed  protectingly  in  front  oi 
her,  to  shield  her  from  what  was  there  to  see. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         i8i 

On  the  fountain's  broad,  flat  edge,  a  man  and  woman 
sat  in  unmistakable  intimacy :  a  fair-haired  woman  with 
naked  shoulders  and  uncovered  arms,  one  hand — th^ 
hand  that  wore  the  wedding  ring — lying  heavily  upon 
her  companion's  knee.  And  the  man  was  handling 
her  hair  with  careless,  familiar  fingers. 

But  they  had  heard  Wang  No's  quick  stepping  in 
front  of  Tzu,  and  moved  uselessly  apart.  The  woman 
looked  up  with  a  startled,  anxious  face. 

*Tzu!" 

For  answer  Ch'eng  Tzu  turned  and  all  but  flung 
out  through  the  curtains. 

It  was  Laura  who  had  called  out  at  her.  And  the 
Englishman  who  had  been  caressing  her  axcustomedly 
was  not  the  husband  to  whom  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  seen 
her  married  not  a  year  ago. 

As  the  two  Chinese  came  back  into  the  outer  room, 
letting  the  curtains  fall  again  before  the  English  in- 
timates, they  came  directly  upon  Mrs.  Marston. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  caught  at  her  chaperon's  hand — Ch'eng 
Tzii  rarely  touched  any  one.  **It  could  not  have  hap- 
pened in  China,"  the  girl  said  sharply. 

Mrs.  Marston  looked  at  her  more  amazed  than  her 
long  social  experience  often  left  her — not  because 
Tzu's  words  were  meaningless,  not  because  the  girl's 
voice,  in  which  the  woman's  acute  ears  had  often  de- 
tected scorn,  was  more  full  of  scorn,  and  of  scorn 
more  bitter,  than  she  had  ever  heard  it,  but  because 
of  the  raging  excitement  in  voice  and  girl.  Tzu  was 
trembling  with  it. 

The  woman  looked  from  Tzii  to  the  Chinese  man 
— had  he  offended  Miss  Ch'eng? — But  when  she  had 
looked  at  him  Mrs.  Marston  thought  not. 

"Let  us  go!"  Tzii  said,  more  imperiously  than  the 


i82        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

woman  had  ever  heard  her  speak — more  imperiously 
than  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  ever  had  spoken  before  to  any 
one  of  Marion  Marston's  years. 

"But  Melba  is  just  going  to  sing,"  Mrs.  Marston 
said  feebly.  "I  was  trying  to  find  you  to  tell 
you." 

"I  am  going  home  at  once,"  Tzu  said,  stamping  one 
red  shoe.  Then  she  laughed  bitterly.  "Home!  I 
mean  back  to  Curzon  Street." 

Wang  No  followed  them  gravely  to  their  carriage 
None  of  them  spoke  again  till  he  closed  the  door  upon 
them. 

Then — Ch'eng  Tzu  leaned  forward  a  little,  and  held 
out  her  gloved  hand  to  him. 

He  took  it  at  once.  "Good-night,"  he  said  gravely. 
And  he  said  it  in  English. 

It  was  to  Mrs.  Marston  that  he  added,  "May  I  come 
to  see  you?" 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  answered  before  the  other  could, 
"Will  you  come?" 

"When  may  I?"  And  he  smiled  into  his  young 
countrywoman's  eyes. 

"To-morrow  at  three,"  she  said  in  their  own  tongue. 
But  in  proud  courtesy  to  the  older  woman,  she  repeated 
her  words  in  English.  "When  I  wish  you  to  leave  us, 
I  will  give  you  your  guest  tea  in  a  Chinese  room." 

"Thank  you,"  the  man  said  gravely. 

"Ch'ing,  Ch'ing,"  Tzu  said,  as  he  stepped  away. 
And  this  time  she  did  not  translate  it  into  "good-by," 
but  left  it  his  and  hers — the  intimate  something,  and 
too,  a  claim,  of  Chinese  to  Chinese,  in  common  ban- 
ishment in  an  alien  country. 

They  were  turning  into  Curzon  Street,  and  Mrs. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         183 

Marston  was  half  asleep,  when  Ch'eng  Tzu  said 
abruptly : 

"Who  was  the  man  that  came  up  and  spoke  to  you 
as  we  went  into  the  Pompadour  drawing-room?" 

"Eh?  Let  me  think,"  was  the  sleepy  answer.  But 
the  woman  was  wider  awake  now  than  her  voice.  She 
had  never  heard  Miss  Ch'eng  ask  who  any  man  was 
before. 

"He  was  neither  tall  nor  short.  His  hair,  short 
as  it's  cut,  is  a  little  curly.  He  had  a  pink  flower  in 
his  coat — daphne,  I  think.  He  is  dark — for  an  Eng- 
lishman." 

Marion  Marston  was  very  wide  awake  indeed  now. 
"Oh!"  she  replied  indifferently,  "that  was  Lord  Ash- 
ford — ^Jack  Selwyn.  His  cousin  Elenore  was  at  school 
with  you.     Haven't  you  met  him?" 

"I  don't  remember,  if  I  have,"  Miss  Ch*eng  said 
indifferently.  And  Mrs.  Marston  drew  a  startling  con- 
clusion, because  the  girl  troubled  to  add,  and  did  it 
with  a  pretty,  suppressed  yawn,  "One  forgets  so  many 
people,  in  Londoa" 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

WILL  those  Chinks  talk?     I  w<^nder  if  they'd 
know  either  of  us  again/* 

"Tzu  won't  talk.     I  can't  say  abont  the  man." 

**Tzu!    You  know  the  she-Chink,  then?    Damn  it.*' 

"We  were  at  school  together  for  two  years." 

**Hell!"  and  the  man  kicked  a  little  piece  of  lace 
and  muslin  viciously. 

Laura  picked  up  Tzu's  handkerchief.  "What  does 
it  matter,  Dick?    Half  London  knows.'* 

"Probably  half  London  suspects.  But  no  one  knows 
- — until  now.  And  we  don't  want  them  to,"  the  man 
said  moodily.    "Can  you  square  your  negro  friend?" 

"I  tell  you  Tzu  will  never  say  a  word." 

"I  wouldn't  want  to  bet  on  it." 

"I  would.** 

"Is  she  fond  of  you?'* 

"No,  old  dear,  she  is  not." 

"The  devil!** 

"Oh!  do  stop  fussing,  Dick.  If  I  don't  care,  you 
needn't.  And  I  tell  you  I  know  what  I  am  saying. 
Wild  horses  wouldn't  get  a  word  about  it  out  of  her." 

"What  about  the  other  Chink?"  The  man  was 
not  reassured. 

"He  may,  of  course,"  Lady  Cooper  conceded  crosslyj 
angry  at  an  interruption  that  bid  fair  to  end  her  eve- 
ning's pleasure,  and  hotly  humiliated  that  all  his  con- 
cern was  so  clearly  for  himself. 

"Then  you  must  square  her,  and  make  her  squara 
him." 

i8j. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        185 

"'No  one  can  make  Ch'eng  Tzu  do  anything,'*  Laura 
j$aid  sharply.     "I'd  like  to  see  any  one  'square'  her." 

"Soft-soap  and  coax  her.    She's  a  woman." 

"I  shall  never  mention  it  to  her,"  the  woman  said 
curtly.  **I  shall  take  my  chance,  and  you'll  have  to 
take  yours.     What  a  hero  you  are!     If  you  can't  be 

anything  but  disagreeable,  you'd  better  go "  she 

added  a  little  pleadingly. 

But  he  ignored  her  challenge,  and  spurned  her  invi- 
tation. 

"Go!  I  should  say  so.  We'd  better  both  make 
tracks,"  he  said  sulkily,  "and  not  together,  either." 

Meeting  Sir  Aston  Cooper  a  little  later,  Dick  David- 
son greeted  him  heartily. 

"Your  wife  was  looking  for  you,  in  that  big  red 
room,  a  few  moments  ago." 

"Was  she?  God  bless  my  soul!"  said  the  elderly 
baronet,  even  more  delighted  than  surprised,  and  hur- 
ried off  beaming. 

And  when  he  had  found  his  wife  he  almost  crushed 
her  hand,  and  apologized  profusely  for  having  kept 
her  waiting. 

"Dick  Davidson's  one  of  the  nicest  boys  I  know," 
Sir  Aston  said  as  they  reached  home.  "We  must  ask 
him  to  the  Grange  for  the  first  shoot." 

"Ask  whom  you  like,"  his  wife  told  him  dully. 
"  'Nice'  is  about  the  last  thing  Fd  call  Dick  Davidson." 

"Darling,"  her  husband  coaxed,  "don't  be  so  preju- 
diced and  critical.    You  are  so  particular." 

Lady  Cooper  had  been  entirely  truthful  in  telling 
Davidson  that  she  would  not  approach  Miss  Ch'eng. 
But  the  night  and  the  next  morning  brought  otheif 
counsel,  though  certainly  no  other  inclination. 


l86        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

She  had  no  idea  who  the  man  with  Tzu  had  been. 
He  might  talk.  And  she  had  no  mind  to  throw  away 
the  ample  convenience  of  Sir  Aston's  bank  account 
for  a  man  who  she  now  realized  clearly  would  avoid 
facing  the  catastrophe  with  her. 

As  she  sipped  her  early  tea  she  half  resolved  to 
go  and  speak  with  Ch'eng  Tzu.  She  did  not  relish 
the  task.  If  Tzu  had  been  indifferent  to  her  at  school, 
she  had  very  actively  disliked  the  Chinese  girl.  But 
she  had  no  fine  feeling  about  it,  and  little  sensitiveness. 
Some  friends  of  her  own  race  she  would  relish  telling 
of  it.  Probably  she  would  boast  of  it  to  two  or  three. 
It  would  have  humiliated  her  to  speak  of  it  to  others. 
But  Ch'eng  Tzu  was  only  a  Chinese.  She  had  visited 
Miss  Ch'eng  several  times,  because  every  one  else  did 
that  could,  and  because  Tzii  was  the  fashion  now.  But 
she  despised  the  Chinese  woman  sincerely,  and  no  more 
thought  of  her  as  an  equal,  or  cared  for  her  opinion, 
than  if  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  been  a  Zulu,  or  a  scullery 
maid. 

She  had  picked  up  the  handkerchief  that  Tzu  had 
dropped,  simply  because  all  pretty,  costly  things  ap- 
pealed to  her,  and  she  had  disliked  seeing  rose-point 
kicked  by  a  man's  boot,  and  had  rescued  it  with  no 
thought  either  of  keeping  it  herself,  or  of  restoring  it 
to  Miss  Ch'eng.  But  she  had  brought  it  home  with 
her,  and  it  would  serve  as  an  excuse  for  an  early  call 
— ^at  an  hour  she'd  probably  find  the  other  alone — if 
she  finally  determined  to  go.  She  spread  it  out  over 
her  blue  dressing-gown.  What  lace!  Yes — she  almost 
thought  she'd  go. 

After  breakfast  she  had  a  stormy  scene  with  Sit 
Aston.    A  dressmaker's  bill,  of  '^unbelievable  extrava- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         187 

gance"  he  called  it,  had  reached  him  with  a  peremptory 
note.  He  was  very  rich  and  very  much  infatuated. 
But  even  his  income  had  its  limits,  if  his  infatuation 
had  not.  Sir  Aston  Cooper  was  very  angry  and  he 
was  frightened.  Such  preposterous  conduct,  uncurbed, 
might  land  a  richer  man  than  he  in  bankruptcy.  He 
pleaded,  stormed  and  threatened. 

Lady  Cooper  did  not  plead.  She  brazened  it  out. 
She  stormed  too,  and  threatened.  But  she  did  con- 
descend to  coax  at  last.  For  she  had  more  than  this 
one  bill  for  him  to  swallow.  Her  enormous  allowance 
— his  solicitors  had  called  it  "imbecile" — was  over- 
drawn for  six  months,  and  she  owed  a  thousand  pounds 
at  bridge. 

She  didn't  cry.  But  he  nearly  did  when  she  had 
told  him  all.  And  before  he  would  write  her  the  neces- 
sary checks  she  had  to  perch  herself  upon  his  knee, 
and  stroke  his  face  for  quite  a  minute.  She  rather 
disliked  doing  it,  she  hated  having  to  do  it.  And  she 
was  in  a  hurry.    Dick  was  coming  at  eleven. 

But  the  Hon.  Richard  did  not  keep  his  appointment. 
She  waited  for  him  almost  an  hour,  then  she  rang  for 
her  car,  and  went  to  Curzon  Street. 

Miss  Ch'eng's  footman  who  opened  the  door  had 
announced  Lady  Cooper  before,  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  announce  her  now.  And  before  Ch'eng  Tzu  thought 
of  such  a  possibility  Laura  was  with  her. 

Neither  moved  to  shake  hands. 

"You  dropped  your  handkerchief  by  the  fountain 
when  you  came  upon  us,"  the  visitor  said  calmly,  hold- 
ing it  out,  "and  I  picked  it  up.    Here  it  is." 

"I  am  sorry  you  troubled."  Miss  Ch'eng  made  no 
sign  of  taking  it. 


l88        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Lady  Cooper  laid  it  on  a  table  and  sat  down.  *'No, 
of  course,  I  might  have  sent  it.  But  I  wanted  to  speak 
with  you — about  last  night." 

"Please  do  not  do  so."  Ch'eng  T*ien  Tzu  stood 
looking  down  coldly  on  the  other. 

Laura  laughed.    "Who  was  the  man?" 

Miss  Ch'eng  lifted  her  delicate  brows  slightly,  but 
made  no  more  reply. 

"Who  was  the  man?"  Lady  Cooper  persisted,  "the 
Chinaman  who  blundered  in  with  you,  into  my  little 
tete-a-tete?" 

"Why?" 

"jWhy  do  I  wish  to  know?    That's  easy." 

"Perhaps  my  Chinese  intelligence  is  dense." 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  the  general  run  of 
Chinese  intelligence,"  Lady  Cooper  returned  with  care- 
less flippancy — it  was  unassumed — "but  your  intelli- 
gence is  not  dense.    No  one's  was  ever  less  so." 

Miss  Ch'eng  bowed. 

"Who  was  he?  Or  tell  me  this — it's  what  I  really 
want  to  know — will  you  vouch  for  him — for  his 
silence  ?" 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu's  face  flamed  red.  "I  vouch  for 
my  friend — to  you?"  And  this  time  the  hauteur  in 
her  voice  got  its  angry  message  through. 

"Forgive  me,  dear,  if  I  sounded  rude,"  Laura  Cooper 
said  prettily.  "I  don't  quite  know  what  Fm  saying. 
I've  had  such  a  rotten  time  this  morning.  My  hus- 
band was  in  a  silly  rage  over  a  bill  of  mine,  and  some 
other  things.  And  I  had  to  sit  on  his  lap  and  let  him 
hug  me  before  I  got  him  tame " 

The  Chinese  girl — still  standing — threw  out  one 
hand,  as  if  to  ward  off  a  blow.  "We  do  not  speak 
of  such  things  in  China.    Kindly  go." 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         189 

The  English  woman  was  the  angrier  of  the  two 
now.  But  she  was  growing  frightened,  and  it  held 
her.  She  rose  and  stood,  cringing  a  little.  "Yes,  Fve 
lots  to  do,"  she  said  weakly,  "and  you  are  busy  too. 
I  only  came  so  early  because  I  wanted  to  be  sure  of 
finding  you,  and  finding  you  alone.  Fm  going  now. 
But  won't  you  please  tell  me,  will  the — the  Chinese  gen- 
tleman— your  friend — say  anything  to  any  one — about 
last  night?" 

Miss  Ch'eng  smiled.  "It  did  not  interest  him,"  she 
said. 

"But  will  he  tell?" 

"He  is  a  Chinese  gentleman,"  was  Tzu's  cold  re- 
tort. 

"That  means  he  will  say  nothing?  I  am  so  very 
anxious." 

"It  means.  Lady  Cooper,  that  he  has  forgotten  it." 

And  Lady  Cooper  took  the  cue  at  last.  "Good-by, 
Miss  Ch'eng,  and  thanks." 

At  that  moment  a  footman  came  in  carrying  a  tray. 
It  was  Miss  Ch'eng*s  rule  that  every  guest  admitted 
to  her — no  matter  what  the  hour — was  offered  some 
refreshment.  Tzu  motioned  the  man  away.  And  he 
went  wondering,  carrying  his  cakes  and  lemonade. 

Again  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  got  her  message  through. 

"Are  you  going  to  cut  me — if  we  meet?"  Lady 
Cooper  said  from  the  door,  laughing  a  little,  and  less 
anxiously  than  she  felt. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  answered  gravely :  "To  do  that  would 
be  a  rudeness  to  Lady  Mary  Worthing,  at  whose  home 
I  met  you." 

And  then  the  other  went.  She  knew  that  she  had 
been  here  for  the  last  time.  But  she  knew  that  Ch'eng 
Tzii  would  never  do  a  rudeness  to  Lady  Mary. 


igo        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

When  she  was  alone  Ch^eng  Tzu  rang  again. 

"Send  Miss  Vail  to  me,"  she  told  the  man  that 
came. 

Ellen  Vail  was  Miss  Ch*eng's  English  maid.  Panii 
was  her  maid  and  tire  woman  still.  But  Panii's  needle- 
craft  was  slight.  She  had  been  learning  other  things 
when  most  Chinese  girls  of  her  class  are  being  taught 
to  sew.  Vail  had  charge  of  their  mistress's  European 
wardrobe,  and  waited  on  her  sometimes. 

When  the  English  maid  came  now,  Ch'eng  Tzu 
pointed  to  the  lace  handkerchief,  and  then  to  the  fire. 
"Burn  it — or  take  it  away.  I  do  not  care  which.  I 
wish  never  to  see  it  again/' 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

'IIIT'ANG  came  just  as  the  clocks  struck  three. 
^^  Tzu  received,  and  welcomed,  him  in  a  Chi- 
nese room.  She  chose  to  show  him  honor — and  she 
felt  it — her  countryman  and  of  her  caste.  And  for 
herself  she  was  glad  to  escape  from  England  for  an 
hour.  She  had  even  begun  to  change  into  a  Chinese 
robe  after  lunch — she  had  eaten  it  alone.  But  she 
had  thought  better  of  that.  To  have  received  Wang 
No,  wearing  Chinese  robes,  her  face  unveiled,  her 
eyes  unabashed,  would  have  emphasized  how  un-Chi- 
nese  a  thing  she  did  in  receiving  him  at  all.  The 
morning  had  left  her  nervous — morally  unstrung.  And 
to  have  met  Wang  No  to-day,  dressed  as  the  women 
of  their  race  dressed,  but  doing  what  no  virtuous 
woman  of  her  race,  caste  and  years  ever  did,  would 
have  embarrassed  her  to-day  she  felt — lightly  as  she 
held  Mr.  Wang's  disapproval  and  angry  strictures,  as 
a  rule. 

The  morning  had  shocked  and  revolted  Ch'eng  Tzu 
more  than  last  night's  contretemps  had.  The  sorry 
tableau  by  the  fountain  had  filled  her  with  an  angry 
contempt  for  Laura  Cooper.  To  the  Englishman  she 
did  not  give  a  thought,  then  or  now.  Ch'eng  Ting 
Tzu  would  have  thought — could  she  have  known  her 
— Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  shamefully  "advanced,"  but,  for 
all  her  social  enfranchisement,  the  girl  was  wedded  to 
old  prejudices,  and  had  no  taint — or  leaven  of  "one 
self -same  law  for  man  and  woman."    What  she  had 

191 


1192        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

seen  had  given  her  for,  and  in,  herself  a  sour  humihat- 
ing  sense  of  sex  degradation.  But  the  visit  of  the  morn- 
ing had  seemed  to  her  much  the  more  horrible.  That  a 
woman,  caught  and  seen  as  Laura  had  been  the  night 
before,  should  come  out  into  the  clear  light  of  day, 
face  the  morning  sunlight  unabashed,  present  herself 
before  an  unspoiled  woman,  and  ask  a  girl  who  had 
known  her  as  a  girl,  ask  an  unmarried  girl,  to  con- 
done— ^and  somewhat  connive,  was  to  Ch'eng  Tzu  im- 
measurably grosser  than  the  dalliance  by  the  fountain. 
Her  gorge  rose  at  it. 

[What  she  felt  about  it  all  was  a  little  unjust,  and 
a  trifle  pharisaical — but  the  sweet  good  taste  of  it  is 
undeniable.  Such  things  happen  in  China  sometimes. 
They  happen  everywhere.  There  is  no  race  so  guarded 
that  womanhood  is  always  safe  even  against  itself. 
In  China  it  happens  very  rarely,  and,  when  it  does,  it 
comes  from  some  great  irresistible  mutual  passion,  not 
from  social  laxity.  And  in  that  East  scores  over  West. 
[And  in  China  it  happens  so  rarely  that  Tzii  had  some 
excuse  for  saying  that  it  could  not  happen  there — but 
not  quite  excuse  enough,  for  she  had  read  deeply  her 
people's  history,  and  had  read  Chinese  fiction  widely, 
and  must  have  known  that  in  many  Chinese  novels  just 
such  misbehavior  is  recorded. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  was  not  quite  fair.  And  to-day, 
for  the  first  time  in  years,  she  was  consciously  home- 
sick. Probably  she  had  always  been  a  little  homesick 
without  knowing  it. 

Laura  Cooper  had  set  ajar  for  Wang  No  a  door 
until  now  shut  and  barred  against  him. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  was  glad  to  see  him — and  told  him  so. 
And  all  their  talk  was  of  home  and  things  of  home. 
Mrs.  Marston  sat  by  the  window,  and  made  lace,  but 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         193 

her  thoughts  were  far  away ;  and  for  the  most  part 
they  did  not  interrupt  her.  She  left  them  presently, 
and  Mung  Panii  slipped  in  and  sat  down  at  Ch'eng 
Tzu's  feet. 

After  Panu  came  Tzu  spoke  to  him  in  their  own 
tongue — and  until  he  went  English  was  not  spoken 
again,  scarcely  remembered. 

Mrs.  Marston  did  not  come  back.  She  knew  that 
Miss  Ch'eng  would  send  for  her,  if  she  wished  for 
her.     Tzu  did  not  send. 

The  little  Chinese  room  was  heaven  to  Wang  No. 
He  had  been  racked  with  homesickness  every  hour  of 
his  long  absence  from  China.  When  he  slept  he  heard 
his  mother  call  him,  and  the  temple  befls  of  home,  the 
lanterns  of  wayfaring  coolies  on  the  mountain  passes 
flickered  in  his  closed  eyes,  he  smelled  the  lotus  on 
the  lakes — and  he  woke  in  a  sweat,  and  moaning, 
writhing,  because  he  could  not  call  out  in  answer  to 
his  mother. 

This  was  China!    And  she  he  loved  was  here. 

Two  pillars  of  sandalwood,  one  beautifully  planed 
to  marble  smoothness,  one  carved  as  elaborately  as  a 
lady's  fan,  supported  the  lacquer  ceiling.  A  hand- 
woven  rug  of  silk  lay  on  the  lacquer  floor.  Everything 
was  elaborate ;  nothing  was  crowded.  The  ceiling  was 
painted  with  homing  birds.  A  great  bronze  crane 
held  the  jeweled  incense-burner  in  his  polished  beak, 
his  eyes  were  rubies,  his  feet  were  pink  with  claws  of 
pale  coral.  There  was  lavishness  of  color,  and  no 
premeditated  color-scheme — but  the  whole  room  had 
the  tone  of  amber — partly  from  the  sandalwood  every- 
where: hanging  from  the  ceiling  in  pierced  lambre- 
quins, the  open-work  cornice,  the  screen  inlaid  with 
mother-o'-pearl,  the  great  chair  picked  with  turquoise. 


194        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

as  was  the  couch  of  sandalwood,  the  stools  and  table, 
partly  from  amber  colored  cushions  embroidered  with 
orange  chrysanthemums  and  lemon  peonies,  partly 
from  a  gold-stone  brazier  and  the  great  yellow  lily 
moving  a  little  in  the  hot  breeze  that  came  from  the 
open  window.  The  cornice  was  a  jungle  of  dwarf  bam- 
boo, rhododendrons,  arbutus  and  loquat,  with  many  a 
thistle  and  sharp-thorned  briar.  Monkeys  and  drag- 
ons and  weird- faced  imps  peeped  and  played  in  that 
jungle  of  sandalwood.  And  open-mouthed  dragons, 
gargoyle-like,  held  up  each  corner  of  the  painted  ceil- 
ing. A  porcelain  elephant,  that  might  have  been  Pu- 
sien's,  so  richly  was  it  caparisoned,  stood  on  the  floor, 
and  held  up  on  its  back  a  great  candlestick  of  yellow 
crystal  taller  than  Ch'eng  Tzu,  filled  with  a  great  red 
candle.  And  smaller  candles  of  red  wax  stood  spiked 
(every  Chinese  candlestick  is  fitted  with  a  spike)  on 
the  long,  low  table  with  the  gong.  From  one  comer 
of  the  ceiling  hung  an  antique  lantern  of  jade.  Three 
silk  scrolls  on  the  walls — far  lovelier  than  any  kake- 
mona  of  Japan,  recorded  a  saying  of  a  sage,  the  praise 
of  a  flower,  and  a  couplet  of  the  poet  Li  Po.  On  the 
fourth  wall  hung  the  one  picture  in  the  room  (except 
for  a  miniature)  and  it  needed  not  its  beautifully  exe- 
cuted idiographic  lettering  to  tell  its  story  or  to  sig- 
nature it  the  brush-work  of  great  Ma  Yuan,  for  the 
herons  lived  on  the  silk,  slaking  their  thirst  at  a  living 
pool,  one,  wing-outspread,  come  a  little  later  than  the 
others,  moving  yet,  looked  up  questioningly  to  a  gather- 
ing cloud.  The  picture  breathed.  The  miniature  was 
a  portrait  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin,  as  Tzu  had  known  and 
loved  her,  but  wearing  robes  and  gems  of  state,  painted 
for  Ch'eng  Tzu  by  an  artist  who  had  crossed  China  to 
do  it  at  Ch'eng  Yiiin's  bidding.    It  was  framed  in  cam- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         195 

phor  wood  carved  and  pierced.  It  stood  on  a  slab  of 
solid  gold,  in  a  niche  as  in  a  shrine.  And  a  curtain 
embroidered  with  the  crests  of  Ch'eng  and  Shao  hung 
beside  the  niche,  ready  at  a  touch  to  veil  the  picture 
face  of  the  old  chieftainess.  There  was  no  door  in 
the  room.  Panels  that  slid  back  and  forth  shut  its 
privacy  from  the  London  house.  The  panels,  too,  of 
tEe  fragrant,  amber-tinted  sandalwood,  were  carved, 
one  with  sprays  of  peach  blossoms  and  cherries  in  fruit, 
one  with  dragonflies  and  wild  roses,  one  with  hawthorn 
in  leaf  and  bloom,  several  with  Buddhas  in  bold  relief, 
exquisitely,  minutely  chiseled.  There  was  no  imperial 
yellow  in  this  Chinese  room  of  a  London  house,  but 
the  room  almost  breathed  the  forbidden  color,  since 
every  other  tint  of  the  supreme  color,  except  the  one 
Emperor-sacred  shade,  mingled  in  one  delicious  amber 
glow.  A  piece  of  needlework — Tzu's — lay  on  the 
couch.     Her  lute  was  on  a  stool. 

This  was  China!  And  she  he  loved  was  here — a, 
Chinese  girl,  for  all  her  hideous  English  dress,  with 
cherry  ribbon  twisted  in  her  braids,  a  red  flower  in 
her  hair,  and  tiny  clumping  shoes  that  told  each  golden 
lily  but  one  human  toe. 

The  clock  struck  five  when  Ch'eng  Tzu  bade  Mung 
Panii  bring  the  guest  tea. 

When  it  came  Wang  drained  his  scalding  cup,  and 
left  her  almost  without  a  word.  But  his  eyes  spoke, 
and  Tzu  knew  that  he  would  come  again. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

"1X7 ANG  NO  often  came  again. 
^^         He  made  no  further  effort  to  resist  the  pres- 
ence of  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu. 

But  his  race-blood  was  stronger  than  the  clamor  of 
his  love,  and  he  spoke  no  word  to  her  that  all  the  world 
might  not  have  heard  unmoved — unless  racially  moved 
— and  he  spoke  scarcely  any  word  that  Panii  did  not 
hear — when  she  troubled  to  listen. 

If  what  Wang  sometimes  said,  in  the  little  amber 
room,  of  Europe  and  of  international  things,  might 
have  angered,  or  even  alarmed  a  listening  Englishman, 
he  said  it  but  seldom.    China  was  their  theme. 

And  if  Wang  No  had  urged  his  suit  with  frank 
words,  frank  English  fashion,  he  might  have  won 
Ch'eng  Tzu. 

But  he  could  not.  He  loved  her  too  well  to  do  her 
that  indignity.  And  his  Chinese  taste  forbade  it.  He 
wooed  her,  heaven  knows,  and  Ch'eng  Tzu  knew  it,  as 
did  Mung  Panii  and  Mrs.  Marston.  His  devotion 
moved  her — and  an  emotion  in  her  presence  that  he 
could  not  always  hide.     But  he  spoke  no  word. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  was  kind  to  him  more  often  than  not. 
Sometimes  she  teased  him.  He  met  both  moods  with 
the  same  grave  courtesy.  And,  if  either  moved  him, 
he  gave  no  sign — no  sign  added  to  those  that  despite 
himself  escaped  him  occasionally  in  her  presence,  and 
that  mastered  him  as  often  and  in  the  same  degree 
when  she  flaunted  as  when  she  was  kind. 

196 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         197 

She  wondered  sometimes  if  she  could  have  torn  him 
from  his  determined  self-control.  But  it  never  oc- 
curred to  her  to  try.  To  have  invited  a  man  to  woo 
her  would  have  been  as  impossible  to  Ch'eng  T'ien 
Tzu  as  to  have  taught  one  how  to  woo  her,  or  to  hint 
to  any  man  how  his  wooing  of  her  would  fare. 

The  Chinese  man  and  the  Chinese  girl  met  con- 
stantly now,  in  her  house,  and  at  the  London  whirl 
of  functions.  But  since  the  night  she  had  held  it — 
gloved — out  to  him  through  her  carriage  window  he 
had  not  touched  her  hand,  nor  had  any  garment  of 
hers  brushed  against  him.  And  they  knew  that  their 
fingers  would  not  touch  again  until  their  acquaintance 
had  ended — in  marriage  or  in  parting. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  wondered  how  it  would  end.  They  all 
did.  And  Wang  No  wondered  most  of  all.  The  three 
English  women  who  loved  Ch'eng  Tzu  wondered  how 
it  would  end,  almost  as  anxiously  as  Wang  No  did. 

Lady  Mary  thought  that  Wang  would  win.  And 
she  hoped  it.  She  liked  the  man.  Lady  Mary  hoped 
the  wedding  would  be  in  London.  She  longed  to  at- 
tend it,  and  have  a  voice  in  the  multi-colored  functions. 
She  even  hoped  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wang  might  con- 
tinue to  live  in  London — at  the  Chinese  Legation,  per- 
haps.    She  was  very  loth  to  lose  Tzu. 

Mrs.  Mars'ton,  who  saw  more  of  Miss  Ch'eng  than 
Lady  Mary  Worthing  did,  and  far  oftener  saw  her 
with  Mr.  Wang,  had  no  idea  what  the  upshot  would 
be.  She  would  not  have  hazarded  a  sixpence  either 
way. 

Nor  would  Mung  Panii,  who  heard  most  of  their 
talk — and  with  the  added  interpretation  of  understand- 
ing the  tongue  in  which  they  spoke  when  alone  but 
for  her.    And  Mung  Panii  wished  it,  if  possible,  more 


198        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

eagerly  than  Wang  himself  did.  For  she  knew  that 
the  marriage  would  mean  a  return  to  China.  Mung 
Panii  would  have  sold  her  soul — if  it  had  occurred 
to  her  that  she  had  one — in  return  for  a  passage  to 
China.  To  be  back  in  China  but  for  one  moon  she 
would  joyfully  have  given  her  rest  of  life.  She  loathed 
each  day  of  her  exile  more  and  more.  She  sobbed  her- 
self to  sleep  almost  half  her  nights  in  an  agony  of 
homesickness  and  despair.  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  repeat- 
edly offered  to  send  Panii  back  to  China,  and  the  slave 
girl  had  ached  to  go.  But  her  august  lady  Ch*eng 
Shao  Yiin  had  charged  her  to  stay  with  Ch'eng  Tzu, 
and  stronger  than  her  hate  of  Europe,  stronger  than 
the  terrible  homesickness  that  tore  and  tortured  her, 
was  the  slave-girl's  fealty  to  Ch'eng  Yiin.  Mung  Panii 
would  sooner  have  disobeyed  the  son  of  Heaven  him- 
self, or  him  who  slept  beneath  the  crystal  tree  at  K'iuh- 
fow,  and  whose  name  she  might  not  speak,  than  have 
disobeyed  Ch'eng  Yiin  living  or  dead. 

Elenore  Selwyn  thought  that  Ch'eng  Tzu  would 
never  marry  Wang  No.  And  she  was  sorry  to  think  it, 
for  she  liked  Wang — and  liked  him  more  each  time 
she  met  him.  Attractions  are  even  stranger  than  an- 
tipathies. Almost  half  our  antipathies  can  be  searched 
out,  and  accounted  for,  but  probably  not  a  quarter  of 
our  affinities  can.  Love  is  a  slyer,  subtler  thing  than 
hate  is ;  liking  than  dislike.  And  Elenore  Selwyn  was 
the  one  English  person,  the  one  only  thing  in  Eng- 
land, that  Wang  No  liked.  Not  only  liked  her,  but 
he  liked  her  warmly,  and  he  respected  her.  It  was  not 
her  fault  that  she  was  English,  and  went  about  at 
night  with  naked  neck  and  arms — and  Mr.  Wang  never 
failed  to  remember  it;  all  the  English  abominations 
were  England's — the  fault  of  an  abominable  people,  a 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         199 

contemptible  system,  and  neither  in  justice  nor  in  Chi- 
nese chivalry  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  Miss  Selwyn. 
That  she  was  as  she  was  was  supremely  to  her  credit, 
the  miracle  of  England,  the  one  flower  in  a  welter  of 
weeds.  Her  friendship  with  Elenore  was  the  one  sole 
thing  in  Ch'eng  Tzu's  English  sojourn  of  which  Wang 
No  approved.  He  always  treated  Miss  Selwyn  with 
a  cordial  deference,  and  tried  sincerely  to  oblige  and 
please  her.  And  no  one  could  be  more  charming  than 
Wang  No  was  when  he  cared  to  be. 

Elenore  thought  that  Tzu  would  not  marry  Wang. 

Mercedes — she  and  her  husband  were  in  London  for 
a  few  weeks — ^was  sure  that  Tzu  would  not. 

And  so  the  restless  shuttle  of  conjecture  went.  But 
it  wove  no  woof. 

Tzu  expected  to  marry  when  she  went  home.  She 
wished  to  do  so,  and  intended  it.  She  dreamed  of  it 
sometimes.  For  she  was  intrinsically  feminine,  quickly 
normal  of  body  and  mind,  and  her  soul  was  sane. 

She  liked  Wang  No.  To  European  blindness  he 
looked  "very  much  like  any  other  Chinaman,"  but 
Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  knew  him  handsome.  And  Sheng 
Liu  valued  him.  And  that  Wang  No  loved  her  counted 
to  her  for  much.  It  had  to  count,  for  she  had  come 
to  ripe  marriage  years,  and  he  was  the  only  eligible 
Chinese  man  she  knew.  There  were  other  young  but 
adult  countrymen  of  hers  at  the  Legation,  and  she  had 
had  speech  of  all  of  them.  But  each  of  them  was 
married. 

Several  of  her  schoolmates  had  married  happily  men 
of  their  own  choice.  And  the  happy  thrill  of  it  had 
reached  Ch'eng  Tzu,  and  a  little  moved  her  even  while 
it  shocked.  It  was  impossible  even  for  a  Chinese  girl 
of  strictest  caste  to  live  as  she  had  lived  in  England 


200        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

for  ten  years  now,  to  see  as  she  had  seen,  without  hav- 
ing century-old  ideals  a  little  warped,  inherited  instinct 
a  little  swayed  towards  some  freedom  of  personal 
choice,  some  opportunity  of  personal  inclination. 

Did  she  love  Wang  No  ?     No. 

Could  she?     Might  she  come  to?     Perhaps. 

His  devotion  touched  her.  His  ardor  reached  her. 
More  than  once  it  flushed  her  cheek,  when  he  had  left 
her — not  before.  She  knew  that  they  were  congenial. 
Slowly  he  was  becoming  to  her — this  courtly  country- 
man of  hers — what  the  girls  had  called  their  sanctum 
at  Belgrave  Square — **home  from  home."  And  she 
knew  that  he  was  waiting,  and  panting,  for  her  return 
to  China.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  Wang  No  was 
destined  her  by  fate.     And  yet ■ 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

T  ORD  ASHFORD  pitched  the  letter  from  him  with 
■*— '  an  oath  that  made  the  breakfast  crockery  shiver, 
and  rammed  his  doubled  fists  into  the  pockets  of  his 
shabby  bath  gown. 

"Shut  it,  you  silly  ass,"  Tom  Granville  said  fiercely, 
fishing  the  offending  epistle  out  of  the  slop-basin.  The 
basin  had  considerable  discarded  tea  in  it.  Tom  shook 
the  wet  pages  gingerly,  and  laid  them  out  to  dry,  if 
they  could,  on  the  spotless  damask.  "Damn  you,  see 
what  you've  done,  you  blighter,  made  me  spot  my 
pretty  dress." 

"Blow  you,  and  your  silly  clothes.  Shy  over  the 
matches,  can't  you?" 

If  the  peer's  bath  robe  was  nondescript  and  shabby, 
the  warrior's  matutinal  raiment  was  fine  enough  to 
cover  a  regiment  with  rainbowed  glory — a  delicate  con- 
fection of  pink  silk,  embroidered  with  silver  storks  and 
butterflies  of  gold.  The  pink  dressing  gown  smelled 
of  violets  and  tobacco,  and  it  made  the  guardsman's 
crimson  head  scream. 

Captain  Granville  shied  the  matches  over — and  he 
shied  them  accurately.  They  landed  neatly  on  Jack 
Selwyn's  nose.  And  the  silver  match  box  was  heavy 
and  sharp-edged. 

"You  would,  would  you !"  Ashford  rose  to  battle. 

They  closed  instantly,  and  wrestled  mightily — • 
shouting  opprobrious  epithets  at  each  other,  as  they 
lurched  interlocked  about  the  room. 

201 


202        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Burton — their  man — came  in  hurriedly,  but  accus- 
tomed and  unperturbed — and  pounced — but  with  dig- 
nity— upon  the  table  glass. 

"You  leave  his  love  letter  alone,  Burts,"  Tom  admon- 
ished. 

"Damn  the  letter,"  the  noble  spluttered,  his  head 
pinioned  under  Granville's  arm. 

Granville  released  him — so  quickly  that  he  almost 
lost  his  footing — and  drew  back  in  shocked  surprise. 

"Don't  let  me  hear  you  speak  like  that  again  of  a 
lady's  letter,  you  low  old  turnip — or  I'll  punch  your 
head  again." 

"You  haven't  punched  it  first  yet,  you  red-headed 
carrot !     Lady !     No  lady'd  write  a  thing  like  that." 

"What's  the  matter  with  it?" 

"Look,  and  see !" 

Tom  picked  up  the  dampened  sheets,  and  scrutinized 
them  through  his  single  eyeglass. 

"Good  lord,  Jack,  old  bean,  what  a  vermilion  awful 
fist !    You  have  my  sympathy." 

"Yes,  ain't  it!" 

"Who  the  glory  wrote  it.  Ashes?  I  can't  read  a 
word  of  it!" 

"Of  course  you  can't.  Who  the  hell  could?  And 
eight  pages  of  it,  and  probably  important." 

"Do  you  think  she's  going  to  sue  you,  old  dear?" 
Tom  stared  at  his  friend  with  a  commiserating  eye. 

"Probably  not,  you  brilliant  humorist.  But  I  want 
to  read  it.     I  promised  her " 

"Breach  of  promise!  My  poor,  poor  friend!"  and 
the  Hon.  Thomas  Stuart  Granville  sank  into  a  chair, 
and  began  to  moan  piteously. 

"Shut  up  that  slosh.  I  tell  you,  we  must  read  it 
It*s  from  my  cousin — — '* 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        203 

"Oh!'*  The  news  was  dull. 

— "and  I  promised  her  I'd  give  her  anything  in 
reason  she  chose,  for  her  birthday,  and,  of  course  this 
is  a  little  list  of  what  she  wants." 

"Eight  pages  of  it." 

"Oh — she  has  generous  ideas — if  she  can't  write. 
And  she  trusts  me.  I  say,  Tom,  a  girl  ought  to  be 
arrested  who  writes  a  fist  like  that." 

"I  quite  agree,"  the  young  guardsman  said  cordially. 
"Couldn't  her  people  afford  a  governess  ?  Didn't  tl^y 
ever  send  her  to  school  even?  Board-schools  are 
cheap." 

Ashford  took  the  letter  up  again,  and  began  study- 
ing it  disgustedly. 

Tom  sat  down  on  the  damaged  table-cloth,  and  began 
eating  out  of  the  marmalade  pot — the  only  provender 
that  Burton  had  not  yet  carried  away. 

"Shut  off  stuffing,  you  pink  old  crocodile,"  Jack 
Selwyn  said  pathetically,  "and  try  and  help  me  mdce 
a  word  out  here  and  there." 

The  warrior  spooned  the  last  of  the  marmalade  into 
his  mouth,  threw  the  porcelain  pot  at  Burton — as  he 
came  in.  The  man  caught  it  gravely,  and  with  un- 
abated dignity  bore  it  away. 

Granville  went  to  Jack,  and  studied — over  his 
shoulder — ^the  hieroglyphic  page. 

"Nell  deserves  brimstone." 

"Who?" 

"Nell — my  cousin  Elenore." 

"You're  a  pretty  brand  of  liar.  Ash-bin.  That's  not 
from  Miss  Selwyn." 

"Oh!  isn't  it!  You  know  my  cousin's  handwriting 
better'n  I  do,  of  course." 

"I  have  had  a  note  or  two  from  Miss  Selwyn,"  Tom 


204        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Granville  retorted  coldly.  *'Her  handwriting  is  beauti- 
ful." 

Lord  Ashford  roared  with  laughter.  "Nell's  maid 
wrote  any  notes  you  had,  old  dear.  Dean  always 
writes  Nell's  letters.  She  must  be  away  or  something. 
Nell  can't  write,  I  tell  you,  any  better  than  this  fly- 
tracks.  If  she  writes  to  a  florist's  for  violets,  they  send 
her  roses.  She's  given  it  up  since  her  catastrophe  with 
Lord  Tunnicraft.  The  old  boy  wrote  her  an  offer  of 
love  and  coronet.  And  Nellie  wrote  back.  Thank 
you  kindly,  no.'  And  he  went  out  and  bought  her  a 
ring — big  square  diamond  set  in  platinum,  and  came 
round  with  it  smirking — kissed  Nell  before  she  knew 
what  was  up,  and  tried  to  ram  the  sparkly  on  her 
finger." 

"Don't  be  a  disgusting  beast,"  Tom  said  curtly. 

"Give  you  my  word  it's  true."  Which  it  was. 
Elenore's  writing  had  been  the  scandal  of  Lady  Mary's 
school.  "And  from  the  day  of  that  chaste  salute  to 
this  Dean  writes  all  Nell's  letters — signs  'em  even." 

The  guardsman  moved  to  the  window,  and  stood — 
his  pink  embroidered  back  to  Ashford — gazing  mood- 
ily across  Hyde  Park.  Those  "note  or  two"  were  in- 
side the  pink  dressing-gown,  in  a  pocket  book,  with  a 
rose-bud  he'd  begged.  And  a  lady's  maid  had  written 
ihem !  He'd  kissed  the  handwriting  of  a  lady's  maid 
— :rather  more  than  once! 

When  they  settled  down  presently  to  the  business 
of  the  day,  with  valiant  industry  and  the  soothing  aid 
of  good  tobacco,  they  contrived  to  read  Elenore's  let- 
ter— in  places. 

As  her  cousin  had  thought,  it  embodied  her  birthday 
demand.     She  wished  to  give  a  house-party,  of  her 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        205 

very  own — at  Jack's  place,  Ashford  Grange— '''Aunt 
Annie  will  chaperon" — the  guests  of  Nell's  selection — 
she  enclosed  a  list — "We  needn't  bother  with  that," 
Jack  said  tossing  it  aside — "and  Jack  was  to  be  there, 
of  course,  and  be  very,  very  good." 

"That's  all  right."  Lord  Ashford  was  relieved. 
"I  suppose  I'd  better  ask  Nell  if  I  may  bring  you  along, 
Tom.     You're  dying  to  come,  aren't  you?" 

"Oh,  not  particularly." 

*  Who's  lying  now,  you  ruddy-headed  lobster?" 
Ashford  chuckled. 

Captain  Granville  blushed. 

Lord  Ashford  rang  the  bell  abruptly.  "Where  the 
devil  is  the  Morning  Post,  Burton,  and  the  other 
rags?"  he  demanded  harshly  when  the  servant  came. 
"Why  the  blooming  Moses  can't  you  allow  me  to  see 
the  morning  papers — when  you've  quite  finished  with 
them?" 

"Beg  pardon,  m'lord,  your  lordship's  a-sitting  on 
them." 

"Put  them  higher  up  then,  another  time." 

"Very  good,  m'lord,"  the  man  said  amiably. 

"Pretty  lordship  you  are!"  The  taunt  came  from 
the  window.  Then  came  a  plaintive  cry — "Good 
lord,  look  at  this !  All  ruined  with  tea."  And  clutch- 
ing tragically  at  his  pink  and  gold  and  silver  gown  the 
soldier  began  to  sob  like  a  little  girl. 

"Darn  your  blinking  togs,"  was  the  heartless  reply. 
The  guardsman  sobbed  but  the  more  piteously. 

But  Ashford,  engrossed  in  print,  ignored  him. 

"For  the  love  of  Mike,"  the  peer  burst  forth  in 
triumph,    tossing   the   newspaper   with   a   whoop   of 


2o6        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

ecstasy  towards  the  ceiling.  "Tom !  Tom,  me  darlint, 
our  nag  has  won!" 

"Never.'' 

"Honor!" 

"The  good  old  outsider!" 

Pandemonium !  The  outsider — backed  in  freak  and 
joke — had  won  by  an  hundred  to  one. 

They  rocked  in  each  other's  arms. 

They  sang. 

They  danced  about  the  room  together,  shouting 
hymns  to  ragtime  tunes — with  Indian  war  whoops  for 
Amens. 

And  the  maiden  lady  in  the  flat  above  rapped  on  the 
floor — her  floor,  their  ceiling — ^with  a  poker,  and  they 
heard  her  not. 

The  scene  was  typical.  Ch'eng  Tzu  might  have  said 
of  it  that  it  could  not  have  happened  in  China.  But  it 
happens  in  London  every  day. 

And  these  were  very  gallant  English  gentlemen — 
staunch  friends,  fair  foes,  clean-limbed,  clean-hearted 
English  boys,  thinking  little  evil,  doing  none — ^upright, 
true,  not  uncultured,  not  unthoughtful :  lion  cubs  at 
play — splendidly  whelped,  and  warranted  to  crash  and 
muddle  through  every  grim  emergency  of  life.  Both 
had  served  their  country,  in  time  of  war;  and  stood 
ready  to  serve  her  again,  to  their  last  gasp.  Jack 
Selwyn  had  deserved  the  honors  he  took  at  Oxford. 
Tom  Granville  had  well  won  the  V.  C.  he  sometimes 
had  to  wear.  They  loved  each  other  tenderly.  They 
revered  all  good  women,  and  pitied  all  who  were  frail. 
Tom  had  been  wounded  in  battle  twice.  Both  had 
been  scarred  in  the  hunting  field.  They  loved  their 
kindred  and  their  King.  They  rode  straight — and 
lived  straight.     And  both  stood  ready  to  die  for  Eng- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        207 

land  any  hour,  and  to  do  it  blithely — and  stood  ready 
to  suffer  for  it  things  far  more  hideous  and  sordid  than 
any  death,  and  to  do  it  gladly  and  heroically  for  any 
number  of  protracted  years. 

The  scene  was  typical.     So  were  the  boys. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

ASHFORD  GRANGE,  long  and  low,  gray,  red- 
•  roofed,  mullioned-windowed — the  loveliest  but  not 
the  largest  of  Ash  ford's  houses,  sparkled  softly  in  the 
early  morning's  silver  sheen.  Wide  swathes  of  ten- 
der grass  stretched  softly  green  and  newly  washed 
between  the  flower-clotted  gardens  and  the  old  gray 
house.  And  beyond  the  gardens  stretched  a  cool  para- 
dise of  trees.  The  girl  plainly  clad  in  gray  linen,  move- 
ing  slowly  with  many  a  pause  among  the  flowers, 
found,  as  she  stopped  to  smile  at  him,  the  "bonnie 
lark,"  perched  on  a  daisy's  stalk,  bending  it  "amang 
the  dewy  weet  wi'  speckled  breast,"  a  "neebour 
sweet,"  and  he  looked  up  at  her  with  tiny  friendly  eyes, 
as  if  he  thought  her  indeed  a  "companion  meet,"  and 
ducked  her  a  gracious  salutation  with  his  downy  head 
as  he  sprang  "upward  blithe  to  greet  the  purpling 
East,"  and  the  "modest  crimson-tipped  flower" 
straightened  itself  up,  shaking  the  tiny  dewdrops  from 
its  rose-petaled  head. 

And  the  girl  went  slowly  on  through  the  tulips  and 
the  ferns,  drinking  the  roses'  wet  attar-breath,  weaving 
their  red  and  pink  and  amber  beauty  into  her  soul, 
and  moved  towards  the  long  cool  vista  that  stretched 
through  the  trees. 

Tzu  had  seen  nothing  in  Europe  that  she  had  liked 
so  much  as  this — nothing  she'd  thought  so  beautiful, 
or  that  satisfied  her  so,  since  she  had  left  Ho-nan. 
Ashford  Grange  seemed  to  her  indeed  a  "liome  from 
home."     The  house  looked,  she  thought,  a  home.     And 

208 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         209 

with  its  long,  low,  irregular  gray  walls,  its  red  sloping 
roofs,  it  reminded  her  of  her  home  far  across  the 
world  sprawling  gray  and  irregular,  low  beneath  curv- 
ing, red,  tent-shaped  roofs.  The  pergola  over  there, 
hung  thick  with  ramblers  of  every  hue,  and  lacquered 
by  the  sunrise,  was  not  unlike  a  paifang.  The  smell 
of  honeysuckle  came  to  her  across  the  tall  lilies.  There 
were  violets  everywhere — as  there  were  at  home. 
Musk  brushed  her  skirt,  and  her  skirt  beat  sweetness 
from  lemon  verbenas  and  clove  pinks.  A  bell  called 
in  the  distance — it  might  have  been  a  distant  breeze- 
blown  temple  bell  at  home.  The  sound  of  rushing 
water,  and  the  liquid  trickling  of  a  rill  met  somewhere, 
and  kissed,  beneath  the  hiding  of  the  trees.  And  the 
new  hour  and  all  the  perfect  peace  were  hers.  No 
other  human  creature  seemed  awake,  certainly  none 
was  astir.  She  and  the  shy  wild  things  of  the  place 
were  all  alone — she  and  they  alone  with  the  new  day. 

Ch^eng  Tzu  stretched  out  her  hands  in  greeting  to 
the  sun,  coming  up  to  England  and  to  her  from  China 
— on  its  way  back  to  China — bringing  her  a  message, 
taking  a  message  from  her.  The  sun  was  rising  up 
from  China — and,  for  that,  and  for  its  regnant  self 
the  Chinese  girl  kot'owed  to  it,  before  she  stooped  to 
gather  a  few  violets  for  her  breast.  And  the  rising 
sun  shot  a  shaft  of  radiant  light  through  the  perfumed 
air, — it  fell  at  Ch'eng  Tzu's  feet,  and  kissed  them. 

The  day  called  to  her,  the  day  and  all  its  quivering 
things,  and  she  called  back  to  them.  They  claimed 
her.  And  she  claimed  them,  and  gave  herself  to  them, 
as  she  curled  down  against  a  great  oak  tree,  and  took 
communion  with  Nature,  drinking  from  its  perfumed 
chalice,  breaking  its  blessed  daily  bread;  such  intimate 
communion  as  occidental  souls  cannot  take. 


210        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Europeans  living  in  China,  and  living  there  vdth  an 
un-European  humbleness  of  sympathy  to  which  she 
sometimes  shows  a  little  of  her  sceret,  never  cease  to 
wonder,  never  slake  their  surprise,  at  how  marvelously 
psychic  the  Chinese  are.  But  they  never  suspect  but 
the  outer  fragments  of  that  marvel. 

What  occidental  science  to-day  begins  to  whisper  of 
Nature,  Chinese  soul-instinct  has  known  always. 
Chinese  poets,  Chinese  artists,  Chinese  sages  have  told 
it,  and  Chinese  prince  and  peasant  have  received  the 
message,  and  quickened  to  it.  The  Chinese  have 
known  for  centuries  that  birds  have  immortality,  that 
flowers  have  souls  and  hearts  and  **love  the  fresh  air 
they  breathe."  Ch'eng  Tzii  knew  that  the  roses  loved 
the  air  that  touched  them,  and  that  the  air  loved  them. 
She  knew  that  the  dewdrops  counted  their  petals,  en- 
joyed their  velvet,  and  that  the  birds  gloated  over  their 
colors. 

In  Europe  Confucius  is  credited  the  greatest  Chinese, 
and  the  most  far-reaching  and  potent  force  in  Chinese 
life  and  thought — perhaps  because  "Confucius"  is  the 
only  Chinese  name  that  most  educated  Europeans 
know.  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  scarcely  presumed  to  men- 
tion Confucius's  name.  In  China  she  could  not  have 
mentioned  it  at  all.  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  never 
spoken  it.  But  Tzu  knew  that  not  Confucius  but  old 
Lao  Tze — another  name  she  must  not  voice — counted 
in  China  for  most,  had  taught  China  most.  And  it 
was  of  a  saying  of  Lao  Tze  that  she  was  thinking  as 
she  sat  leaning  against  the  great  oak,  with  the  English 
violets  in  her  gown — his  saying  that :  "The  tree  that 
needs  two  arms  to  span  its  girth  sprang  from  the  tiniest 
shoot.     Yon  tower,  nine  stories  high,  rose  from  a  little 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        211 

mound  of  earth.  A  journey  of  a  thousand  miles  began 
with  a  single  step/' 

Scrupulous  in  their  observance  of  the  intricate  Con- 
fucian ritual,  with  all  its  long  minutely  prescribed  cere- 
monial, the  Chinese — loving  freedom  as  no  other  people 
has,  but  holding  soul- freedom  as  much,  compared  to 
physical  freedom — soon  wearied  of  the  chain  and 
cramp  of  the  older  philosopher's  materialism  and  nar- 
row elaborate  rule,  and  turned  for  refreshment,  rest 
and  soul-growth  to  the  rhythmed  thought  of  Lao  Tze's 
spirituality  and  to  the  Nature  that  it  hymned :  finding 
''books  in  the  running  brooks,  sermons  in  stones," 
friends  in  flowers,  counsel  in  the  far-off  hills,  compan- 
ionship in  the  white-crested  water's  foaming  fall — 
peace  and  satisfaction  without  satiety  in  the  blue  sky 
and  the  breathing  cloud. 

Probably! — in  international  thought — Confucius's 
name  will  always  be  the  name  most  prominently  asso* 
ciated  with  China — ^and  largely  too,  though  unspoken, 
most  celebrated  in  China.  But  a  nicer  estimate  would 
give  old  Lao  Tze  pride  of  place.  The  more  visible 
observance  of  Taoism  has  become  cheapened,  degraded 
even,  by  its  popular  malpractices :  crass  fortune-telling 
and  superstitious  gibberish.  But  the  fine  spirit  of  the 
great  cult  remains,  permeating  China  with  beauty, 
spirituality  and  sanity.  And  perhaps  it  is  the  soul  of 
Lao  Tze  that  may  yet  preserve  China  from  her  last 
and  crassest  folly — the  crime  and  stupidity  of  aping 
the  pinchbeck  ways  of  alien  modernity,  and  substituting 
for  the  most  ideal  and  successful  democracy  the  world 
has  known  a  mountebank  and  puritanical  republic. 
Insanity  is  all  but  unknown  in  China,  and  conceivably 
it  is  so  because  Lao  Tze  still  breathes  out  his  healthy 


212        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

heart  upon  his  people,  and  because  they  Hve  so  much 
with  nature,  holding  with  nature  their  greatest  inti^ 
macy.  Confucius  was  great-souled  and  great-minded. 
It  was  idiocy  to  behttle  him.  It  is  the  minghng  of 
their  sages*  teaching  that  has  made  the  Chinese  what 
they  are :  a  contemplative  and  the  most  practical,  inde- 
fatigable and  industrious  of  all  races ;  the  only  human 
race  that  has  had  the  wit,  the  sanity  and  the  culture  to 
make  of  daily  downright  hard  work  a  pastime,  a  cul- 
ture and  an  art. 

The  Chinese  love  nature — scenery,  birds,  verdure, 
foliage  and  all  the  misted  wonders  of  the  air,  for  them- 
selves, for  what  they  are — with  a  loyal  and  an  under- 
standing love.  Ch'eng  Tzu  loved  the  lark  that  had 
greeted  her  and  left  her,  the  daisy  he  had  bent  to  a 
dew-bath  in  the  grass,  the  violets  at  her  breast,  the 
lovely  things  she  saw  through  the  vista  of  the  trees — 
loved  them  passionately — for  their  souls,  their  being, 
for  what  she  knew  they  were  and  said  and  felt  and 
thought  and  told  her,  even  a  thousand  times  more  than 
she  loved  the  beauty  which  was  to  her  but  their  signa- 
ture^— as  a  hungry  lover  craves  more  to  see  his  loved 
one's  face,  and  touch  it,  to  hold  her  hands  in  his,  to 
feel  her  breath  upon  his  cheek,  than  he  does  to  find  a 
letter  from  her  in  his  post. 

Dim  in  the  distance  a  hill  misty  and  gray  in  the  early 
light,  soft  with  willow  trees,  stooped  down  to  a  marshy 
meadow  where  kingcups  grew  and  cuckoo  flowers  and 
purple  flags,  with  violets  and  forget-me-nots  edging  a 
silent,  tranquil  pool.  It  reminded  Ch'eng  Tzu  of  a 
landscape  of  Ma  Yuan's — perhaps  easily  the  greatest 
landscape  painter  earth  and  art  have  ever  bred — a  long 
scroll  of  silk,  that  sometimes  was  reverently  unrolled 
and  hung  for  a  few  days  on  the  K'o-tang  wall  at  home; 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        213 

a  famous  picture,  and  little  Tzu  had  loved  it  passion- 
ately— remembering  it  she  loved  it  now,  and  for  it 
loved  this  English  landscape,  and  understood  it,  the 
more,  and  felt  and  claimed  it  hers. 

She  thrilled  to  the  breaking  day.  She  felt  nearer 
to  China  than  she  had  felt  in  years.  The  soul  of  her 
womanhood  was  waking  to  consciousness  as  it  had  not 
before.  And  she  felt  happier,  happier  to  be  in  Eng- 
land, more  one  with  it,  than  she  had  ever  done  before. 

A  pale  blue  butterfly  came  hovering  down  and  lit  a 
moment  on  her  hand.  A  tiny  squirrel  studied  her  from 
behind  a  clump  of  fern — ^and  sent  her  a  soft  chattered 
friendly  greeting  before  it  scampered  leisurely  away. 

Tom  opened  his  sleepy  eyes,  and  lay  very  still,  star- 
ing in  astonishment  at  Jack. 

They  had  arrived  so  late  the  night  before  that  they 
had  seen  neither  Elenore  nor  her  guests.  A  bursted 
tire,  a  recalcitrant  crank,  and  a  wrong  turning  had 
delayed  them  for  hours.  A  somnolent  and  indignant 
footman  had  let  them  in,  and  they  had  tumbled  as 
quietly  as  they  could  to  bed — grumbling  in  whispers  at 
each  other  because  they  had  to  share  a  bedroom.  The 
Duchess — the  "Aunt  Annie"  of  Elenore's  undecipher- 
able letter — ^had  even  hinted,  over  the  telephone,  that 
it  might  be  necessary  to  put  a  third  bed  in  Ashford*s 
room;  Nell  was  so  cramming  the  roomy  old  Grange 
with  her  birthday  guests. 

Tom  watched  Lord  Ashford  with  astonishment  that 
grew.  The  clock  showed  little  more  than  six.  Jack 
Selwyn — regrettably  indifferent  to  habiliments  as  a 
rule,  and  incurably  fond  of  his  morning  pillow — was 
brushing  his  hair  with  rapid  assiduity,  at  the  same  time 
regarding  his  own  face  gravely  in  the  mirror.     His 


214        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

tie  was  beautifully  knotted.  His  flannel  trousers  were 
immaculate,  and  he  evidently  intended  to  assume  soon 
a  coat  as  immaculate,  hanging  ready  on  his  bed,  for 
Tom  saw  a  pink  rosebud  in  the  white  lapel. 

"What  the  hell's  the  meaning  of  it?" 

Jack  frowned  at  him  through  the  glass. 

"You  go  to  sleep  again.     You're  not  on  in  this  act." 

Granville  raised  up  on  to  an  elbow,  and  propped 
his  head  in  his  hand. 

"I  require  to  know  the  cause  of  this  sudden  lunacy," 
he  said  sternly — "brushing  your  hair  as  if  you  were 
going  to  a  fresher  dance — at  four  in  the  morning!" 

"It's  gone  six,"  Ashford  said,  curtly. 

"And  we  didn't  get  to  bed  till  after  two." 

Jack  put  on  his  coat. 

"For  the  love  of  Mike,"  the  man  in  bed  remon- 
strated, "tell  me  what  is  up." 

"You  turn  over  and  go  to  sleep." 

"Precisely  what  I  desire  to  do.  But  my  torturing 
curiosity  won't  let  me.    Tell  me  about  it." 

*T  couldn't  sleep — I'm  going  out.  It's  a  ripping 
morning." 

"Good  Lord !  Where  did  you  get  that  flower?  It's 
fresh  picked  or  I'm  a  turnip." 

"You  are — a  mangel-wurzel." 

"John  Selwyn,  you've  been  out  already!  And  not 
in  those  new  flannels.  You  picked  that  rose.  What 
sent  you  back  here  to  dress  for  a  garden  party,  in  a 
very  devil  of  a  hurry  too,  and  with  a  look  of  acute 
anxiety  on  your  pretty  face?" 

"I'd  come  and  thump  you,  if  I  had  time,"  the  peer 
retorted,  scrutinizing  a  fresh  silk  handkerchief  criti- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        215 

cally,  and  rearranging  it  in  his  coat  pocket  three  sepa- 
rate times.     **But  I  haven't,  I'm  in  a  hurry." 

"So  I  perceive.  Well!  My  aunt,  kid,  if  I  didn't 
know  you  never  looked  at  one  twice,  Fd  say  it  was  a 
girl." 

"It  is  a  girl." 

Tom  Granville  sat  bolt  upright  in  bed.  But  he  was 
speechless. 

Jack  laughed.  "I  couldn't  sleep,  Tom,  straight 
stuff.  Got  tired  thrashing  about  on  my  bed,  and  hear- 
ing you  snore  in  yours.  So  I  got  up.  Thought  Fd 
have  a  pipe  in  the  garden.  Well,  I  didn't — I  picked 
you  a  rose  instead — but  when  I  realized  how  like  hell 
you  look  in  pink,  I  put  it  in  my  coat  instead.  And 
now  I'm  off.  There's  a  girl  out  in  the  garden  I  want 
to  speak  to " 

"Which  girl?'*  Tom  asked  shyly — he  no  longer 
thought  the  situation  funny. 

"I've  no  idea.     I  didn't  see  her  face." 

"Holy  Moses!  And  you've  dressed  up  like  that! 
I  say,  boy,  are  you  well?  One  of  the  maids  of  course, 
at  this  pagan  hour " 

"I  didn't  see  her  face,  I  tell  you,  just  a  girl  in  a  gray 
dress  mooning  about  the  garden,  but  it  was  not  a 
maid." 

"How  do  you  know?"  Granville  demanded  dis- 
gustedly. 

"I  saw  her  walk.  It  was  a  lady,  the  girl  I  saw  out 
there  with  the  flowers — no  maid,  more  like  a  princess. 
And  it  was  a  girl.  I  know  that,  if  I  didn't  see  her 
face." 

"Hope  she's  sixty — ^when  you  see  her  face " 

"No  fear !     I  know.     I  say,  Tom,  old  lobster,  I  wish 


2i6        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

I  knew  who  all  Nell's  asked.  I  may  know  her,  and 
may  not.  But  I  can  say  'Good-morning'  to  any  one  in 
my  own  garden.     Ta-ta." 

Granville  listened  to  Ash  ford  running  down  the 
stairs,  then  sank  back  into  his  pillows  with  an  eloquent 
whistle. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

nr^OM   whistled   low   and   long.     Here  was   news 
-*•     indeed.     Jack  Selwyn  off  before  breakfast  to 
talk  to  a  girl  in  a  garden — a  girl  whom  for  all  he  knew 
he'd  never  seen  before.     Gee  whiz !     What  next ! 

He — Tom  himself — had  been  in  love  for  years,  and 
he  supposed  everybody  knew  it.  He  was  pretty  sure 
Jack  did.  But  Jack! — that  was  different.  Jack  was 
only  twenty-four — almost  three  years  younger  than 
he  himself.  And  Jack  had  never  cared  for  girls — 
except  his  cousin  Elenore — and  that  was  just  brother- 
and-sister  of  a  very  special  sort.  Her  people  had 
brought  Jack  up;  their  home  had  been  his  until  he 
came  of  age.  He  and  Nell  had  been  inseparable  since 
they  were  babies.  Tom  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  pic- 
ture of  her  Jack  had  at  public  school,  long  before  he*d 
seen  Elenore  herself,  and  had  treated  his  fag  with  spe- 
cial amenity  in  consequence.  But  he  knew  that  Jack 
had  never  bothered  with  any  other  girl.  Of  course, 
if  he  had  put  it  to  himself,  probably  he*d  have  said 
that  Jack  would  go  the  marriage-way  of  most  men 
some  day.  You  were  pretty  sure  to  marry  if  you  lived 
long  enough.  There  were  lots  of  girls — and  girls 
were  ripping.  And  Jack  was  twenty-four.  But  Tom 
never  had  put  it  to  himself.  It  had  never  crossed  his 
head.  He  had  always  thought  of  Jack — as  far  as  it 
had  shaped  into  thought — as  a  very  desirable  belong- 
ing of  his  own  and  Elenore's.  And  now  the  boy  was 
off  at  six  in  the  morning — "all  dressed  up" — after  a 

217 


2i8        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

girl.  By  Jove.  Go  to  sleep  again!  Of  course  he 
couldn't  go  to  sleep  after  this — ^who  could!  He  won- 
dered who  the  devil  the  girl  was  any  way  ?  Probably 
one  of  the  maids  after  all.  And  then  the  drinks  would 
be  on  Jack.  Tom  chuckled  grimly.  He  rather  hoped 
it  was  a  maid.  Jack's  face  would  be  worth  seeing. 
Tom  lit  a  cigarette,  curled  down  more  comfortably, 
and  gave  himself  to  tobacco  and  day-dreams— of 
Elenore. 

This  was  Ashford's  own  room.  A  water  color  of 
Elenore  smiled  above  the  fireplace.  What  a  face! 
English,  fair,  wholesome.  How  blue  her  eyes  were! 
How  well  her  head  sat  on  her  shoulders!  How  nice 
that  soft  brown  hair!  He  wondered  if  she  hated  red 
hair  as  much  as  some  people  did.  All  the  Granvilles 
had  red  hair.  And  probably — oh !  damn  it !  He  was  a 
cad  to  take  such  a  liberty  as  to  think  of  that 

But  the  dream  would  not  be  driven  away.  And  Tom 
Granville  lay  very  still,  his  eyes  riveted  on  a  pictured 
face,  his  thoughts  far  away.  He  forgot  to  smoke. 
The  cigarette  burned  steadily  on  until  he  dropped  it 
with  an  oath.  Tom  was  still  sucking  his  finger  when 
Jack  came  in.  Jack's  face  was  worth  seeing:  dis- 
gusted and  thoroughly  sulky. 

"Hello,  old  bean!     Sold?" 

Lord  Ashford  nodded,  and  pushed  the  bell  viciously. 

"Scullery  or  t weenie,  or  only  sear  and  yellow  ?  You 
didn't  stay  long." 

"I  didn't  stay  at  all.  You  wait  till  I  see  Nell 
Selwyn,  I  won't  half  roast  her !     What !" 

"Wasn't  she  gracious?" 

"Gracious  be  blowed.  I  didn't  speak  to  her — when 
I  saw  her " 

Tom  grinned.     He  was  not  ill-pleased. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        219 

"Tea — and  look  sharp/'  Ashford  said  snappily,  as 
Burton  appeared. 

"Very  good,  my "  the  man  began,  to  break  off 

and  cross  the  room  more  quickly  than  he  often  moved. 
"Beg  pardon.  Sir,  but  are  you  afire?" 

"No,"  Tom  assured  him,  "but  I  have  been.  And 
probably  the  damned  bed  is." 

That  restored  Jack  Ashford's  perturbed  spirit. 

"Set  himself  alight  with  his  own  head,  Burts.  He 
often  does." 

Tom  found  a  boot,  and  flung  it,  as  Burton  left  the 
room  carrying  a  smoldering  sheet. 

"She  was  under  the  trees  when  I  got  there,"  Jack 
said  more  amiably,  "sitting  down — as  if  she  meant  to 
stay  there  all  day.  I  got  quite  near,  and  had  a  jolly 
good  look  before  she  saw  me.  I  don't  think  she  did 
see  me  at  all.     Tom,  she's  a  Jap !" 

"A  what?" 

"Japanese,  or  Indian,  or  something  rummy  of  that 
sort." 

"Black,  eh?" 

"Good  Lord,  no!  Not  even  brown.  A  good  sight 
lighter  than  Mercedes  de  Piro  was,  or  a  Cuban  girl  that 
went  to  school  with  Nell.  But  she's  a  Jap  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort." 

"Lady's  maid  of  somebody.  My  Aunt  Susan's  got 
a  Jap  butler,  and  he's  top  hole." 

Ashford  frowned.  "No!  I  tell  you  this  was  a 
lady-girl." 

"Lady-girl!"  Tom  chuckled  at  the  odd  phrase. 
"Well — you  needn't  bully  me,  if  she  is.  And  why 
didn't  you  speak  to  her  then?" 

"Didn't  want  to.  Shouldn't  have  known  what  to 
say.     She  might  have  screamed." 


220        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"Funked  it,  eh?  Youll  need  to  get  over  that,  my 
child.  There's  lots  of  them  about  now.  I  took  a 
Maharanee  in  to  dinner  at  Aunt  Kate's  last  year — 
awfully  interesting  woman.  Intelligent — ^what!  We 
live  in  an  advanced  age,  you  and  I,  old  dear.  No  Lon- 
don drawing-room  is  complete  without  an  Asiatic 
And  Tm  quite  expecting  to  waltz  with  an  African  belle 
any  day." 

"I  dare  say !  But  I  prefer  English.  Oh !  there  you 
are  at  last !  Pour  it  out.  And,  I  say,  Burts,  who  all 
are  here?" 

Burton  recited  a  page  from  the  Court  Circular. 

"Thought  I  saw  a  Japanese — gentleman — out  an 
the  hall  just  now." 

"No,  sir,"  the  servant  told  him,  "I  think  not. 
There's  no  Japanese  gentleman  staying  here,  I  think, 
except  her  Grace's  pugs.  But  there  is  Miss  Sheng,  a 
Chinese  lady." 

"Hello !"     Granville  whispered. 

"Chinese,"  Lord  Ashford  cried.  "That's  ten  thous- 
and times  worse !    You  wait  till  I  see  Nell." 

Breakfast  was  an  elastic  appointment  at  the  Grange 
— eaten  when  and  where  you  liked.  The  Duchess 
hadn't  breakfasted  out  of  her  own  rooms  for  twenty 
years. 

Lord  Ashford  looked  about  him  a  little  apprehen- 
sively as  he  and  Tom  went  into  the  breakfast  room. 
Tom  saw  it  and  grinned.  Then  Elenore  came  in 
through  another  door,  and  Granville  forgot  all  about 
Jack  Selwyn. 

But  Miss  Ch'eng  did  not  come.  She  breakfasted 
much  later,  eating  fruit  in  her  own  sitting-room,  while 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        221 

the  Duchess  ate  steak,  omelette  and  several  other  things 
in  bed. 

Ashford  followed  his  cousin  when  she  left  the  din- 
ing-room. 

But  his  attack  upon  her  was  less  direct  and  strong- 
armed  than  he  had  led  Tom — and  incidentally  Burton 
- — to  anticipate. 

"Who  all  are  here,  Nellie?" 

"I  sent  you  a  list." 

"Much  good  that  was!  You  wrote  it.  Where's 
Dean?" 

"In  a  sling.  At  least  her  right  wrist  is.  She 
sprained  it." 

"Who's  here— that  I  don't  know?" 

Elenore  ran  through  a  score  of  names. 

"And  who's  Miss  Sheng?  I  never  heard  the  name 
l)efore." 

"Ch'eng,"  his  cousin  repeated  severely.  "Do  try  to 
say  it  correctly.  And,  Jack,  I  particularly  want  Tzii 
to  have  a  really  good  time." 

"^Choo'?     Who's 'Choo'?" 

"Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  is  a  dear.  She  was  at  Lady 
Mary's  when  I  was." 

"Not  English,  I  gather  from  her  names." 

"Of  course  not.     She  is  Chinese." 

Lord  Ashford  whistled. 

"Don't  be  coarse,  Jack — if  you  can  help  it.  Miss 
Ch'eng  is  very  charming." 

"Look  here,  Nell.  I  gave  you  carte  blanche — I 
know  that.  But,  great  Scot,  a  Chinese  girl,  here  with 
us!     What  is  she — why " 

"My  friend,"  Elenore  said  icily.     "And  your  guest." 

"Oh — all  right — coz.     Don't  get  the  wind  up." 


222        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"I  don't  intend  to.  I  leave  that  to  you.  But,  John 
Selwyn,  if  you  are  not  nice  to  Tzu,  I'll  never  speak  to 
you  again." 

*'0h — all  right — no  need  to  go  off  the  deep  end." 
His  voice  was  meek,  but  his  face  was  sulky.  "I  say, 
Nell,  can  she  speak  English?" 

"Better  than  you  do — and  everything  else.  You  are 
taking  her  in  to  dinner." 

"No,  please,  I  can't  do  that.     I  say,  Nell." 

"Aunt  Annie  goes  in  last,  of  course.  There  is  no 
other  married  woman  here  until  to-morrow.  Miss 
Ch'eng  takes  precedence.  It  belongs  to  her.  There 
is  no  other  girl  here  of  her  rank." 

"Chinese  rank !  My  hat !  I  say,  what  am  I  to  say 
to  her?" 

"Just  what  you'd  say  to  any  other  lady  at  your  own 
table." 

"Oh !  I'll  not  forget  she  is  a  lady,"  Ashford  said  a 
little  huffily.     "I  told  Tom  so." 

"You  said  you  didn't  know  her,  pretended  not  to 
know  her  name  even." 

"No  more  I  did.  But  I  saw  a  girl  in  the  garden  this 
morning,  in  the  distance,  a — a  foreigner — just  saw  her 
back— but  I  told  Tom." 

"Said  it  was  a  princess,"  Granville  corroborated, 
joining  them  in  the  hall. 

Elenore  was  mollified.  "So  she  is,"  she  said  stoutly. 
"See  that  you  treat  her  as  such." 

"Tennis?"    Tom  said  ingratiatingly. 

"If  you  like,"  Elenore  told  him.     "Coming,  Jack?" 

"Thank  you,  no.  I  am  about  to  search  the  library 
for  a  life  of  Confucius." 

"I  wouldn't,  if  I  were  you,"  his  cousin  said  over  hef 
shoulder.     "You  couldn't  possibly  understand  it." 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         223 

Lord  Ashford  watched  them  moodily  until  they  were 
out  of  sight.  Then  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  made 
for  the  stables. 

"Chinese  !'*  he  muttered. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

T  ORD  ASHFORD  supposed  he'd  meet  his  dinner 
•*--'  partner  during  the  day.  He  hoped  so.  He  wasn't 
looking  forward  to  it — except  disagreeably.  But  he'd 
like  to  get  it  over,  as  informally  as  possible,  crash 
through  the  ice  somehow,  before  the  more  formal  hour 
— get  his  bearings  a  little  as  it  were.  Thank  heaven 
there  were  some  married  women  coming  to-morrow. 
He  wouldn't  have  to  go  through  it  twice.  He  sup- 
posed married  women  took  precedence  of  any  girl- 
even  one  who  ate  with  chopsticks,  or  undoubtedly  could, 
and  was  a  granddaughter  of  Confucius  himself. 

But  Ashford  did  not  meet  Miss  Ch'eng  until  just 
before  dinner  was  announced,  though  he  heard  her 
name  all  day  long,  pronounced  by  twenty  tongues  in 
twenty  different  incorrect  ways. 

There  had  been  a  riding  party  in  the  morning,  and 
several  girls  lunched  in  their  habits.  Tzu  among  them. 
But  she  sat  at  the  other  end  of  the  long  table,  beyond 
a  barricade  of  flowers,  and  he  caught  no  glimpse  of  the 
girlish  face  shaded  by  her  broad  hat.  He  thought  the 
Chinese  guest  was  not  there,  and  wondered,  but  would 
not  ask.  Perhaps  the  Chinese  did  not  lunch.  He  won- 
dered if  she  ate  meat. 

When  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  came  into  the  long  draw- 
ing-room— a  great  white,  candle-lit  room,  John  Selwyn 
caught  his  breath.  There  were  eyes  there  that  could 
not  at  first  see,  or  focus  rather,  the  loveliness  in  that 
unaccustomed  type.     But  Ashford  saw  it  at  a  glance. 

224. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         225 

In  his  wordless  British  way  he  worshiped  beauty.  His 
ancestors  had  collected  pictures  for  centuries,  and  had 
spared  no  pains  to  make  their  beautiful  holdings  more 
beautiful.  Lord  Ashford  was  no  mean  judge  of 
beauty :  and  he  quickened  to  it  always. 

He  quickened  to  Ch'eng  Tzu  as  she  stood  a  moment 
near  the  door.  It  might  be  hard  to  talk  to  her,  but  it 
would  be  good  to  look  at  her  through  all  the  dinner 
hour.     And  what  an  artist  had  designed  that  dress ! 

The  face  of  Chinese  age  is  full  of  extraordinary 
dignity.  The  faces  of  Chinese  youth  are  extraordinar- 
ily lovely.  This  girlish  face  was  the  most  exquisite 
that  old  storied  English  room  had  ever  seen;  radiant, 
patrician,  gracious,  tinted  like  a  pomegranate  flower. 
The  twisting  dress  of  crepe,  blue  as  forget-me-nots, 
hung  and  half  clung  falling  from  a  band  of  turquoises 
an  inch  below  her  throat — a  throat  that  was  velvet 
just  not  white.  He  could  see  the  lumps  of  rings  under 
the  loose  long  gloves.  She  wore  no  other  jewels, 
unless  those  were  real  that  blazed  out  from  the  tiny 
padded  shoes  that  her  gown  escaped.  The  girl's  black 
hair  was  braided  about  her  proud-set  tiny  head,  and 
above  each  ear  she  wore  a  little  stiff  bunch  of  forget- 
me-nots.  He  thought  the  Chinese  had  narrow  slant 
eyes.  This  girl's  were  magnificently  set,  absolutely 
straight — fearless,  unfathomable,  sparkling  now  like 
deep  brown  diamonds.  He  had  never  seen  anything 
to  match  the  sure,  exquisite  penciling  of  her  narrow 
eyebrows.  And  her  mouth — there  was  no  describing 
that — her  mouth 

The  Duchess  beckoned  him. 

"This  is  my  nephew.  Lord  Ashford,  Miss  Shen," 
she  said. 

"I  saw  you  in  the  garden,"  he  told  her,  as  he  bowed. 


226        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"this  morning,  Miss — Ch'eng,"  stammering  a  little  at 
the  name. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  smiled  frankly  at  her  host.  *  Thank 
you  for  having  such  a  beautiful  garden,  Lord  Ash- 
ford,"  she  said. 

Ashford's  gray  eyes  leapt — in  spite  of  him — at 
Ch'eng  Tzu's  voice.  English  ears  can  never  grow 
quite  accustomed  to  Chinese  voices.  And  there  are  a 
few  of  our  English  alphabetic  sounds  that  the  Chinese 
voice  will  not  repeat,  and  some  sounds  we  slur  they  can- 
not slur.  When  a  Chinese  man  speaks  our  tongue  the 
light  timbre  of  his  voice  is  always  something  unwel- 
come to  our  hearing — and  the  finer  his  birth,  the  lighter 
his  voice.  Ch'eng  Tzu's  pronunciation  of  English  was 
almost  English,  the  slight  difference  as  intriguing  as 
a  tiny  mole  on  a  beauty's  white  cheek  or  a  dimple  in  a 
baby's  chin.  And  her  voice,  with  a  tiny  ripple  in  it, 
like  the  natural  ripple  in  some  happy  woman's  hair, 
was  very  musical,  like  a  scented  flute,  or  an  exquisite 
silver  bell,  low,  clear  and  strangely  sweet. 

"Thank  you,  for  liking  it,"  he  replied,  with  a  slight 
grateful  bow  for  which  the  Chinese  girl  liked  him. 
Elenore's  cousin  was  well-bred  she  thought.  And  she 
remembered  that  she  had  thought  he  looked  that  at 
Doncaster  House. 

He  offered  Miss  Ch'eng  his  arm,  half  wondering  if 
she'd  take  it. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  took  it  very  simply,  and  quite  imperson- 
ally— as  a  queen  might  accept  a  chamberlain's — just 
touching  his  coat  with  her  glove.  But  Ash  ford  knew 
that  the  distance  the  girl  kept  was  a  natural  aloofness 
and  no  pose.  And,  if  he  had  thrilled  to  her  beauty, 
he  liked  her  for  the  distance  that  she  kept.  He  wished 
his  mother  might  have  known  this  girl. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         227 

Elenore,  who  had  been  watching  them  a  little  anx- 
iously, sighed  with  relief.  She  was  very  pleased  with 
Jack.  She'd  knit  him  a  pair  of  braces — and  embroider 
them,  or  a  very  special  tie.  And  then  she  gave  her 
attention  to  her  own  escort  quite  whole-heartedly. 
Jack  was  a  good  boy. 

He  was  still  a  somewhat  embarrassed  one.  The 
garden  had  been  a  good  opening.  But  the  announce- 
ment of  dinner  had  interrupted  it — and  he  didn't  know 
how  to  get  back  to  it.  He  could  think  of  no  com- 
promise between  stark  silence  and  the  weather — as 
they  moved  to  the  dining-room.  He  took  craven 
refuge  in  the  weather. 

Miss  Ch'eng  answered  pleasantly,  and  showed  none 
of  the  amusement  she  felt.  Possibly  she  felt  less  than 
she  would  have  felt  at  the  conversational  poverty  of 
another  man.  She  had  not  forgotten  the  man  who  had 
caught  her  interest  at  Lady  Doncaster's,  and  had  known 
that  she  had  not. 

When  dinner  began  her  host  found  himself  in 
scarcely  better  small-talk  fettle. 

"Do  you  Hke  England,  Miss  Ch'eng?"  he  asked 
rather  desperately. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  did  not  misunderstand,  and,  understand- 
ing, she  did  not  resent  the  trite  old  question.  Many 
an  Englishman  who'd  taken  her  in  to  dinner  had 
clutched  at  it  as  at  a  life-belt.  She  was  accustomed 
to  the  embarrassment  of  Englishmen  who  met  her  for 
the  first  time. 

"Most  of  it,"  she  said  laughing. 

Jack  Selwyn  wondered  which  was  loveliest,  the  white 
brightness  of  her  teeth,  or  their  perfect  shape.  Ch'eng 
Chii-po  had  wondered  the  same  thing  years  ago  when 
another  Tzu  had  laughed  at  him  first. 


228         THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"It  is  almost  half  home  to  me,  Lord  Ash  ford — 
your  England,"  Miss  Ch'eng  continued  more  gravely. 
And  she  added  a  trifle  sadly,  "In  a  sense  I  am  without 
a  country;  I  have  been  away  from  home  so  long — 
since  I  was  ten." 

"How  jolly  rotten  for  you."    He  said  it  impulsively. 

Tzii  nodded.     "Yes— just  that." 

"But  you  remember  China?" 

"Yes,"  she  told  him,  with  an  odd  smile.  "I  remem- 
ber China,  Lord  Ash  ford — quite  well.  I  think  China 
is  not  easily  forgotten.  And  we  Chinese  have  per- 
sistent memories — self-centered  ones." 

"I  wish  I  had  seen  China."  It  was  a  new  wish — 
brand  new. 

The  girl  divined  that  he  was  at  a  loss  for  subjects 
for  chat.  She  liked  him  none  the  less  for  not  being 
glib.  And  when  he  ventured  a  question  or  two,  she 
told  him  of  her  country,  and  something  even  of  her 
people — a  rare  thing  for  Ch'eng  Tzu  to  do.  She  al- 
most never  could  be  led  to  speak  of  China  unless  alone 
with  her  sparse  Chinese  London  acquaintance. 

While  dinner  was  still  young  she  had  put  John 
Selwyn  at  his  ease — partly  by  her  quiet  good-nature, 
partly  by  her  magnetism — the  magnetism  to  which  chil- 
dren and  all  animals  responded  invariably. 

He  thought  her  hands  the  most  wonderful  things 
he  had  ever  seen — and  probably  they  were:  tiny, 
flower-sweet  things,  exquisitely  modeled,  proud  and 
dimple-nicked  beneath  a  wicked  weight  of  rings.  Lit- 
tle quiet,  tranquil  hands  that  made  him  think  of  pale 
yellow  rose  leaves  and  of  old  French  love-songs.  He 
marveled  that  she  had  contrived  to  carry  them  about 
without  breaking  them.    And  he  wondered  what  they 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         229 

felt  like — and  how  it  would  feel  to  touch  them,  the 
funny  little  things! 

Lord  Ashford  ate  very  little  dinner.  And  the  lady 
on  his  left  grew  more  and  more  indignant.  Her  host 
scarcely  remembered  to  speak  to  her  once — and,  when 
he  did,  what  he  said  was  not  worth  the  trouble  of 
hearing. 

In  the  drawing-room  after  dinner  Ashford  went  to 
Miss  Ch'eng  and  stayed  by  her  for  a  decent  time. 
Not  to  have  done  so  would  have  been  rude. 

The  men  in  the  smoking-room  missed  Ashford,  an 
hour  or  so  after  the  women  had  all  said  good-night. 
Granville  volunteered  to  find  him.  He  had  seen  Jack 
saunter  off  by  himself  some  time  before. 

Tom  ran  Jack  to  earth  in  the  library.  Lord  Ash- 
ford, long  after  midnight,  was  reading  an  article  in 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica — ^the  article  on  China. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

NOVELTY  is  stimulating.  All  men  find  it  so.  A 
great  deal  that  Miss  Ch'eng  could  do  and  do 
well,  Ash  ford  would  have  taken  for  granted  in  almost 
any  English  girl,  and,  taking  it  for  granted,  would 
have  found  it  commonplace  and  tame.  Tzu  rode  al- 
most as  well  as  he,  matched  him  at  tennis.  So  did 
Elenore.  In  Elenore  he  accepted  it  indifferently.  In 
the  Chinese  girl  it  was  unexpected,  and  gave  him 
the  tonic  tingle  of  novelty.  She  played  the  piano^  ad- 
mirably— which  Nell  did  not — could  give  him  odds  at 
billiards,  and  beat  him  hands  down  at  bridge.  She 
distanced  him  hopelessly  at  chess.  She  was  more  widely 
read,  and  more  deeply  than  he — and  he  had  taken  hon- 
ors at  the  'Varsity,  and  still  loved  books.  She  spoke 
French  better  than  he  did — and  knew  other  European 
tongues  of  which  he  was  all  but  ignorant.  Man-like, 
this  might  have  bored  him  in  a  plainer,  older  woman, 
piqued  him  in  a  pretty  girl  of  his  own  race.  But  he 
found  it  vastly  attractive  in  this  dainty  Oriental  with 
the  piquant,  flower-like,  girlish  face,  and  the  hands  like 
pale  yellow  butterflies — and  never  tired  of  it,  because 
it  never  ceased  to  surprise  him. 

Lord  Ashford  was  too  good  a  host  to  devote  him- 
self to  one  guest  to  the  exclusion  of  others — ^though 
often  inclination  pressed  manners  hard — and  Ch'eng 
Tzu  was  not  the  girl  to  allow  it.  But  her  racial  lone- 
liness gave  her  a  prior  claim  which  her  host  was  not 
slow  to  yield.     And  accident  threw  them  together 

2Z0 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         231 

oddly  often,  and  each  day  pushed  their  acquaintance 
towards  ripe  and  fruited  friendliness. 

Elenore  smiled. 

Tom  Granville  was  troubled. 

The  house  party  shrugged  and  grinned — but  only  a 
girl  or  two  did  it  acidly.  They  thought  Lord  Ash  ford 
might  have  been  better  employed. 

Jack  had  given  Nell  carte  blanche,  and  she  had  in- 
vited most  of  their  guests  for  a  long  stay — three  weeks. 
Jack  had  grumbled  at  the  length  when  she  told  him. 
He  grumbled  to  another  tune  now,  and  pestered  Nell 
to  *'keep  it  going**  for  five  weeks — or  six. 

An  English  man  and  a  Chinese  girl  were  in  love. 
And  inside  a  week  every  human  being,  except  Ash  ford 
himself,  knew  it  of  him.  What  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  felt, 
or  if  she  felt,  no  one,  but  she  herself,  could  hazard. 
Tzu  gave  no  sign. 

But  Tzu  knew.  And  she  was  troubled  even  more 
than  Granville  was. 

She  had  known  at  the  Doncaster  crush  that  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  a  man  had  interested  her.  And 
she  knew  that  she  came  of  a  strong  race  whose  women 
cared  but  once.  But  she  had  no  mind  to  make  a  mis- 
alliance, even  if  this  English  man  would  bow  his  pride 
of  race  beneath  a  Chinese  yoke.  And  she  thought  that 
he  would  not.  She  knew  that  Lord  Ashford  had  lost 
his  heart — for  a  time,  at  least,  but  she  thought  that 
he  would  not  lose  his  head.  She  would  marry,  of 
course.  A  life  less  fulfilled  was  unthinkable.  She 
would  go  home — soon  now,  and  throw  her  lot  in  with 
her  own  people.  To  do  less  would  be  unthinkable.  But 
she  was  here,  through  no  fault  or  weakness  of  her 
own.  "Character  is  destiny,"  Ch'eng  Yiin  had  taught 
her  from  her  birth.     Well — ^she  would  not  fail  or 


232        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

smirch  her  destiny.  She  was  going  back  to  China — 
home.  But  first  she'd  drink  this  cup — not  to  the  dregs, 
not  to  the  rich-scented  purple  depth,  but  sip  the  golden 
perfumed  bubbles  foaming  at  the  rim.  Fate  had  pro- 
vided the  shrine.  Fate  was  a  divinity — and  she, 
Ch'eng  Tzii,  would  taste  but  a  lip-touch  of  the  heady 
draught,  before  she  spilled  its  richness  out  to  soak  and 
be  lost  on  the  English  grass — a  libation  to  China — 
would  taste,  just  taste,  that  she  might  hoard  its  mem- 
ory, and  know  sometimes  its  tang  when  she  was  alone 
in  China.  Alone  in  China!  But  she  would  not  be 
cdone  in  China — long!  Ah,  well — all  she  had  done  in 
Europe,  even  what  she  was  doing  now,  had  been  com- 
manded by  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin.  Who  was  she  to  know 
better  than  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  ?  That  venerable  queen- 
thing  could  do  no  wrong. 

And  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  went  to  the  mirror  and 
fastened  honeysuckle  in  her  hair.  And  at  her  breast 
she  thrust  an  English  rose — just  opening  pink. 

The  old  butler  hurried  across  the  room  unceremoni- 
ously, the  pompous  quiet  of  a  lifetime  torn  away,  and 
spoke  to  his  master  without  prefix;  man  to  man. 

"Nero  has  broken  loose." 

"My  God!"  Ashford  sprang  up,  his  wine  glass 
shattered  on  his  plate. 

A  girl  gave  a  little  silly  scream.  A  sillier  girl  gig- 
gled.    Elenore  Selwyn  clutched  the  cloth. 

Ashford  turned  to  her.  "Where  is  Tzu?'*  he 
snapped. 

They  all  were  there,  all  but  Tzu. 

Elenore  choked.  "She  was  picking  cherries — in  the 
walk.     I  left  her  there  half  an  hour  ago " 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        233 

**Has  Miss  Ch^eng  come  in?  Can't  you  speak/* 
John  Selwyn  cried,  rushing  from  the  room. 

"Not  yet,  my  lord,  I've  been  in  the  hall  for  some 
time,"  a  footman  said. 

They  all  crowded  into  the  hall. 

John  Selwyn  was  pelting  up  the  stairs.  "Tom,"  he 
called  over  his  shoulder.  "No  woman  is  to  leave  the 
house.  See  all  the  side  doors  shut  and  fastened.  Bates. 
Stand  by  that  front  door,  Tom.  I  want  you  in  a  min- 
ute.   Tell  the  maids.  Bates." 

They  heard  him  rush  through  the  upper  hall — break 
through  a  door.  And  he  was  running  down  the  stair? 
again,  a  great  whip  and  a  thong  dangling  from  his 
arm,  loading  his  pistol  as  he  ran.    His  face  was  white. 

"Which  way  did  he  go?" 

A  stable  boy — he  had  brought  the  word — answered. 
"He  was  headin'  for  the  Cherry  Walk,  my  lord." 

Ashford  swayed,  an  instant,  and  choked  back  a  sob. 

Elenore  caught  at  him  at  the  door. 

"Jack,"  she  sobbed,  "don't  hurt  Nero  unless  you  have 
to " 

"Not  unless  I  have  to,'*  he  said  grimly  as  he  ran, 
"Keep  the  women  in,  Tom,  until  I  come  back." 

Granville  nodded,  and  laid  his  hand  on  Elenore  SeK 
wyn's  arm.  And  they  stood  together  watching  Jack 
rush  down  the  path  calling,  "Tzu !" 

Nell  swayed  a  little.  She  was  crying  softly  now. 
Tom  put  his  arm  about  her,  and  led  her  into  a  sitting- 
room. 

"Shut  that  door,"  Granville  commanded  as  they 
went.     "Watch  through  the  window,  Clark." 

Jack's  face  had  quivered  a  little  when  she  had  said, 
"Don't  hurt  Nero,"  and  Elenore  had  thought  she  saw 


234        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

tears  near  his  eyes  as  her  cousin  pounded  down  the 
stairs. 

She  knew,  and  Tom  did,  how  Jack  loved  the  dog ;  a 
great  untamed  mastiff  whom  scarcely  the  man  who 
fed  him  dared  approach — docile  to  his  master,  brute 
and  bully  to  all  other  living  things, — a  terrible,  vicious 
dog-monster,  herculean  in  strength,  lion-limbed,  who 
should  have  been  destroyed  long  ago — only  Jack  Sel- 
wyn  could  never  have  it  done. 

How  had  it  happened?  Who  was  to  blame?  And 
little  children  might  be  playing  in  the  woods  and 
meadows,  and  at  the  cottage  doors.  And  Tzu  was  in 
the  Cherry  Walk. 

A  hundred  men  were  hunting  Nero  now — men  with 
whips  and  sticks.  Farm  laborers  with  forks,  game- 
keepers well  armed — their  master  and  Nero's  foremost 
in  the  chase. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  was  sitting  beneath  the  oak  tree  where 
he  first  had  seen  her,  her  hat  upturned  at  her  side, 
filled  with  red  and  yellow  cherries.  Nero  lay  beside 
her,  his  great  head  pillowed  on  her  lap,  one  paw — it 
could  have  killed  a  child;  it  had  killed  a  sheep,  and 
had  shredded  a  stout  barrow  into  tow— snuggled  on 
her  ankle.    Tzii  was  eating  cherries. 

Jack  tried  to  call  him — but  no  sound  came — ^he 
pointed  his  pistol,  moved  another  step,  a  cautious  step, 
tried  again  to  rule  his  voice.  And  this  time  a  sound 
came,  a  guttural,  tortured  sound. 

Nero  heard  and  looked  up,  beat  his  great  tail  a  little 
on  the  ground — but  made  no  other  move,  lifting  his 
eyes,  but  not  his  head. 

The  girl  looked  up  and  smiled. 

"We  are  having  a  pic-nic,"  she  called. 


THE  FEASl'  OF  LANTERNS         235 

"Hush!"  Ashford  gasped  sternly.  **No — for  God's 
sake  don't  move." 

Ch'eng  Tzu  laughed.  "Are  you  afraid  of  my  dog, 
Lord  Ashford?  I  won't  let  him  hurt  you" — and  she 
gave  the  great  shaggy  brute's  head  a  proprietary  pat. 

How  he  got  to  them  John  Selwyn  never  knew. 
Ch'eng  Tzu  knew  that  he  lurched  as  he  came — the 
nozzle  of  his  pistol  still  aimed  steadily  at  Nero's  head. 
The  hand  that  held  the  pistol  never  wavered  the  tremble 
or  the  space  of  a  hair.  But  the  girl  saw  how  gray 
his  face  was,  and  how  it  twitched. 

He  reached  them.  Down  on  his  knees — his  body 
thrown  on  the  big  dog's — his  arm  about  the  dog's 
throat — the  lead  was  snapped  on;  with  a  superhuman 
effort — Nero  had  thrice  his  strength,  and  the  man's 
strength  was  spent — he  hurled  the  brute  a  little  way 
from  the  girl,  pitching  him  over  onto  his  splendid 
tawny  back.  Nero  lay  quite  still,  upside  down  but 
content — ^with  a  pistol  at  his  head,  and  gestured  lazily 
one  friendly  paw. 

"Please  go,"  Ashford  said  hoarsely. 

Ch'eng  Tzii  held  out  her  hand.  "Give  me  that 
gun " 

"I  may  have  to  use  it.  Go!  but  not  quickly.  He 
may  try  to  spring." 

Tzu  cuddled  back  against  the  tree,  and  selected  a 
cherry — two,  on  their  slender,  dangling  stalks. 

"I'm  sorry  if  we've  frightened  you,"  she  said.  "But 
it's  nonsense,  indeed  it  is.  He's  quite  a  darling.  He 
wouldn't  hurt  me  for  the  world.  No  animal  will  attack 
or  harm  a  Ch'eng,"  she  added  simply.  "I  think  he 
knows  I'm  Chinese.  And  I  know  he  knows  I  love  him. 
He  is  my  friend." 

And  at  last  Ashford  believed  it — and  let  the  pistol 


236        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

lay  on  the  grass — but  close  to  his  hand.  And  Tzu 
spoke  more  intimately  to  him  than  she  had  done  be- 
fore— told  him  things  about  her  country  and  her  people 
that  she  had  not  told  before — ^told  him  of  her  won- 
derful old  great-grandmother,  to  whom  wild  birds  came 
when  she  called  them,  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  who  had  ruled 
a  great  estate  with  a  glance  or  a  gesture,  and  whose 
magnetism  could  conquer  every  four-footed  wild  thing, 
and  with  a  smile  could  make  them  come  and  crouch 
and  fawn  upon  her. 

And  Nero  crept  back  and  laid  his  head  again  upon 
her  knee,  and  watched  her  with  adoring  eyes. 

And  John  Selwyn,  Lord  Ashford,  knew  that  he 
would  give  his  soul  to  take  the  Chinese  girl  into  his 
arms,  and  hold  her  there. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

NERO'S  done  it!"  Tom  said  dejectedly. 
'T  rather  think  he  has,"  Elenore  replied  cheer- 
fully. 

Granville  groaned — and  missed  his  shot. 

**Why  do  you  mind  so  much?"  the  girl  asked,  win- 
ning hers,  and  throwing  down  her  cue.  She  had  won 
the  game. 

"Because  it  isn't  natural.  It's  upside  down  and  in- 
side out.     And  those  things  never  work." 

"Tzu's  splendid." 

"She's  top-hole.  Fm  not  blaming  Jack.  I  blame  no 
one — unless  it's  the  old  lady  over  in  China  that  you 
say  sent  her  here  to  grow  up  where  she  don't  belong, 
among  people  with  whom  she  can  never  really  mix — 
without  a  single  friend  or  thing  of  her  natural  own. 
It  wasn't  cricket." 

"No,"  Elenore  said  slowly,  "Tzu  doesn't  mix.  I 
doubt  if  she'd  *mix'  anywhere,  in  China  any  more  than 
here.  But  I  like  her  and  respect  her  more  than  any 
girl  I  know.  And  she  is  very  lovable.  We  all  loved 
her  at  school.  I  don't  see  how  Jack  was  to  help  it — • 
and  after  the  other  day." 

"No  more  do  I.  I'd  be  in  love  with  her  myself,  if 
I  hadn't  been  in  love  already  for  ten  years  and  more." 
He  said  it  stoutly,  and  looked  Elenore  Selwyn  square 
in  the  face.  He  tried  to  look  her  in  the  eyes — but 
Elenore  was  looking  hard  at  the  scoring  board.  "I 
can  understand  Jack  being  in  love  with  Miss  Ch'eng 

237 


238        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

all  right — that's  easy — and  I  can  understand  Miss 
Ch'eng  caring  for  him — ^lord,  yes — if  she  does — that's 
not  my  trouble,  but  what  my  trouble  is,  what  I  can't 
understand — is  how  they  are  going  to  hit  it  off — after. 
That  does  me." 

"Well,"  Elenore  said,  "it's  up  to  them." 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  Granville  agreed  gloomily. 

"Perhaps  they  won't  risk  it." 

"Oh,  they'll  risk  it.    I  know  Jack." 

"But  I  know  Tzu — if  any  one — of  us — does." 

"It's  up  to  Jack,"  Tom  insisted. 

"No,"  Elenore  contradicted.  "I  think  it's  up  to 
Tzu.  My  how  it  rains,"  she  added  as  the  storm  crashed 
against  the  window  panes. 

"Yes,  it's  a  nice  drizzle,"  Granville  said  admiringly. 
He  blessed  the  torrents  that  had  been  pelting  down 
all  day,  and  given  him  this  hour. 

There  is  nothing  a  novelist  so  dreads  as  making  a 
proposal.  And  the  dread  is  justified  of  its  abortive 
children. 

The  proposal  is  every  fictionist's  Waterloo.  In  real 
life  there  are  few  proposals,  and  almost  never  one  ar- 
ticulate. Men  contrive  without  it — and  women  assist 
them.  It  is  common  knowledge  that  no  woman  will 
tell  even  to  her  bosom  friend  at  the  time,  or  to  her 
children  in  the  after  years,  what  her  husband  said 
when  he  asked  her  to  be  his  wife — not  because  every 
woman  has  this  one  nice  reticence,  but  because  he  did 
not — say  anything. 

Captain  Granville  was  made  of  manly  stuff.  He  in- 
tended to  propose  to  the  girl  he  loved.  And  he  in- 
tended to  do  it  squarely — with  crossed  "t's"  and  dotted 
**i's."    He  thought  it  wasn't  playing  the  game  to  do 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        239 

it  less  verbally  and  directly.  And  he  meant  to  do  it 
now. 

It  wasn't  his  most  ecstatic  moment,  but  he  hoped 
it  might  lead  to  it. 

He  planted  himself  in  front  of  the  door. 

"Tea  now,"  Elenore  said,  waiting  for  him  to  let 
her  pass. 

But  he  did  not  give  way. 

"Elenore,"  he  said,  "could  you — ^would  you  mind 
too  much — marrying  a  red-headed  man?" 

The  girl  flushed.  She  laughed  softly.  But  her  eyes 
grew  very  tender — and  her  mouth. 

"Fd  like  to  marry  the  nicest  man  I  know — Tom," 
the  girl  said  softly. 

He  took  her  hand — and  then  he  took  the  other  one. 
"You  know,  we  are  all  red-headed,"  he  said  patheti- 
cally— "every  one  of  our  branch  for  centuries.  But 
we  all  go  bald  very  early." 

"Oh!"  she  smothered  her  laughter  in  his  coat — it 
wasn't  far. 

Tom  laid  his  face  on  hers.  "You  know  I've  al- 
ways loved  you,  Nell — and  always  will.  Will  you  be 
my  wife?    Will  I  do,  dear?" 

"Yes — please,"  she  whispered. 

"Thank  the  lord  that's  over  then,"  the  man  said. 
And  he  said  several  other  things — gradually — his  face 
on  hers,  his  fingers  in  her  hair.  He  was  saying  them 
still  when  Jack  sauntered  in. 

"Hello!"  Lord  Ashford  remarked. 

"You  clear  out,"  Tom  told  him. 

But  Elenore  freed  herself,  and  turned  a  laughing 
face  to  Jack.  He  had  never  known  before  how  pretty 
she  was.    Few  people  ever  did — except  Tom  Granville. 


240        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

"What's  the  joke,  Nell  ?"  Ashf ord  said  tenderly.  He 
was  more  moved  than  he  had  often  been. 

"I'm  going  bald,"  Tom  answered  for  her.  "And 
my  wife  thinks  it's  funny." 

"You're  going  strong,"  Lord  Ashford  said.  Then 
he  went  to  Elenore,  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  and 
kissed  her  reverently — and  bolted  from  the  billiard 
room,  going  whence  he'd  come.  He  closed  the  door 
behind  him. 

And  the  darkening  storm  wore  a  halo. 

"  'Ave  that  there  'ound  been  killed,"  old  Mrs.  Smedly 
asked  anxiously. 

"Not  'im,  the  blooming  man  eater,"  the  stable  boy 
told  her  bitterly.  "  'E's  been  pampered.  'E'll  die  o* 
old  age  an'  clotted  cream — that's  wot  'e'll  die  of " 

And  more  lettered  people  were  saying  much  the  same 
thing.  The  house  party  said  it  freely — in  various 
tones  of  disapproval  and  amusement.  Peasant  and 
gentle,  the  entire  countryside  was  far  more  excited 
at  the  reprieve  of  Lord  Ashford's  terrible  dog  than 
they  were  in  Miss  Selwyn's  engagement. 

The  engagement  had  been  a  conclusion  so  long  fore- 
drawn  that  it  was  somewhat  stale  before  it  transpired. 
The  most  match-making  matrons  in  Mayfair  had 
washed  their  jeweled  hands  of  Captain  Granville  years 
ago — four  years  ago,  in  Elenore  Selwyn's  first  season. 

But  few  of  the  house-party  had  even  heard  of  Nero 
— so  paddock-cloistered  had  he  lived — till  his  lurid 
escape,  and  melodramatic — as  they  saw  it — if  tame, 
capture.  To  the  women  of  the  large  house-party  the 
big  dog's  dash  for  freedom,  and  presumably  to  cele- 
brate it  with  a  feed  of  human  flesh,  had  come  as  some- 
thing of  a  conversational  refreshment. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        241 

Sitting  safe  in  boudoir,  drawing-room,  or  at  bridge- 
table,  Nero,  providentially  reenclosed,  brought  some- 
thing of  the  jungle  to  them.  Their  London-jaded  souls 
were  more  easily  stirred  than  children's.  "That  ter- 
rible brute — so  incredible  that  dear  Ashford  should 
keep  him,  and  fond  of  him  too — must  be — and  such 
a  nice  boy,  and  such  a  quiet  dear  thing — your  deal, 
dear" — Nero  and  his  escapade  were  a  novelty — and 
a  novelty  less  repetitional  than  the  new  Montenegrin 
dancer,  or  the  last  society  divorce — "Mary  Montecute, 
of  all  people,  only  fancy,  and  Lord  Smythson!" 

Two  women  left  abruptly.  "The  brute  got  out  once, 
and  he  may  again  any  day.  No  one  can  say  I  am  a 
coward,  but  I  draw  the  line  at  being  eaten  by  a  mad 
dog."  Several,  more  spectacularly  mettled,  begged 
Lord  Ashford  to  introduce  them  into  Nero's  paddock, 
"and  let  me  pat  him,"  and  were  denied  it.  And  men 
of  the  party,  who  had  scarcely  noticed  Ch'eng  Tzu 
before,  regarded  "the  little  Chinese  girl"  with  new  in- 
terest, and  an  affectionate  respect.  Any  girl  who  could 
make  friends  with  Ashford's  beast  was  a  damned  good 
sport,  if  her  relatives  did  eat  rats  and  puppies,  and 
carry  their  new-bom  female  children  to  the  top  of  the 
nearest  hill,  and  leave  them  there  to  die. 

Nero  remained  unavoidably  ignorant  of  his  happy 
advancement  into  the  scintillating  intellectuality  of 
Mayfair  social  small  talk.  But  he  realized  that  his 
existence  had  brightened  considerably.  And,  being 
a  dog,  he  was  grateful.  Ch'eng  Tzti  took  him  for  a 
long  walk  every  day — even  when  it  rained — Lord  Ash- 
ford in  close  attendance  on  them  both,  in  case  of  emer- 
gency. And  the  "clotted  cream"  of  the  stable  boy's 
sarcasm,  though  a  verbal  inexactitude,  was  no  exag- 
geration.    Nero  would  not  be  killed.     Nothing  less 


242        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

regal  than  old  age  would  usher  him  on  high  to  be  p» 
mandarin — so  Ch'eng  Tzii  told  Ashford,  and  Nero  cor- 
roborated her  with  a  thumping  tail — among  the  dogs 
who  had  joined  their  ancestry.  But  Nero  would  make 
no  second  unauthorized  and  unaccompanied  escape. 
His  paddock  door  would  never  be  left  unlatched  and 
unguarded  again.  The  head  stableman,  and  two  of 
his  underlings  had  been  dismissed. 

"Aunt  Annie"  agreed  with  Captain  Granville  that 
NeTo  had  ''done  it."  But  Nero  had  not.  He  was 
an  accessory  after  the  doing.  Propinquity,  novelty,  and 
the  one  thing  in  human  nature  for  which  there  is  no 
analysis,  the  call  of  maid  to  man,  the  claim  of  man 
to  maid,  had  done  it — in  as  far  as  it  yet  had  been  done. 
Nero  had  convenienced  and  hastened — advanced  it. 
But  he  was  but  a  supernumerary  in  the  play  in  whose 
essential  cast  there  is  rarely  but  two. 

Moreover  the  now  expectant  house  party  stood  a  fair 
chance  of  disappointment.  They  counted  on  the  an- 
nouncement of  a  second,  and  more  exciting  engage- 
ment, but  there  was  not  a  little  probability  that  this 
preliminary  first  act  would  end  an  unfinished  play. 

Love  at  its  strongest — is  a  mighty  destroyer.  It 
can  shatter  all  things  but  one:  self-control  established 
and  convinced. 

Ch'eng  Tzu,  a  quickening  girl,  home-sick  for  a  home 
she'd  scarcely  known,  and  homelinesses  she'd  never 
known,  heart-sick  for  soul-rights,  lonely  in  exile — 
exile  none  the  less  exile  for  all  the  interest,  soft  gar- 
ments, and  jeweled  comforts — ripe  for  happiness,  had 
given  him  her  heart  almost  at  once — and  she  knew  it. 
For  long  centuries  the  women  of  her  race  had  loved  at 
first  sight — prepared  for  it  by  tradition  and  upbring- 
ing— the  first  sight  of  a  husband's  eager  face  when 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        243 

he  lifted  her  crimson  veil.  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu — so  alone 
in  England,  so  socially  exposed — had  loved  suddenly, 
as  Ting  Tzu — so  harem  guarded — in  a  Ho-nan  court- 
yard suddenly  had  loved  Ch'eng  Chii-po.  It  was  in 
their  blood — a  thing  of  fate  and  character,  no  un- 
maidenliness.  But  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  did  not  intend  to 
become  the  wife  of  John  Selwyn.  And  she  beUeved 
that  he  would  not  seek  it. 

Ashford  knew  now  that  he  loved  Tzu — and  he  was 
amazed  to  find  what  a  masterful  thing  love  was.  He 
wondered  if  it  took  many  fellows  by  the  throat  as 
it  had  him;  and  he  watched  Granville  with  troubled, 
speculative  eyes.  He  would  have  avoided  Ch'eng  Tzu 
now,  if  he  could.  But  that  was  beyond  his  strength. 
He  followed  and  waylaid  her,  and  his  assiduity  was 
grave,  without  smirch  or  taint  of  flirtation.  He  came 
of  a  race  that  rode  straight.  He  was  incapable  of 
any  thought  even,  of  flirtation,  with  this  girl  so  alone 
and  so  trebly  a  guest,  Nell's  guest,  his  guest,  and  a  guest 
of  England.  But  both  his  judgment  totally,  and  his 
taste  somewhat,  discountenanced  his  taking  of  a  Chi- 
nese wife.  He  was  willing  that  Tzu  should  know  he 
loved  her,  indifferent  if  others  did,  but  he  did  not  in- 
tend to  woo  her. 

The  Chinese  and  the  English  are  the  two  races  rich- 
est and  strongest  in  self-control — character  is  destiny. 
And  it  was  improbable  that  the  match-making  ac- 
credited to  Nero  would  succeed. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

ANOTHER  day  had  come — so  the  clocks  said. 
The  storm  still  held,  a  deluge  now  that  wrapped 
the  Grange  in  blackness.  Electric  lights  and  dinner- 
candles  were  as  necessary  to  satisfactory  breakfasting 
as  kidneys  and  omelettes  were.  The  Duchess  had  or- 
dered fires  in  all  the  rooms,  and  Elenore  was  disturbed 
for  the  success  of  her  dance.  For  it  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  gossip  and  tobacco  (about  equally  shared 
between  the  two  sexes — the  women  smoked  every- 
where, and  the  men  everywhere  but  in  the  drawing- 
rooms)  were  the  only  entertainment  Elenore  had 
provided  for  her  guests.  Gossip  and  nicotine  undoubt- 
edly were  the  roast  beef  and  Yorkshire,  but  there 
were  souffles  in  abundance  and  in  variety.  There 
was  dancing  every  night  in  the  hall,  in  an  improvised 
ballroom,  for  those  who  chose.  To-night's  was  to  have 
been  a  big  affair — half  the  county  invited.  Elenore 
wondered  how  many,  if  any,  could  come  through  such 
a  deluge. 

"May  I  show  you  the  pictures  now?"  Ashford  asked 
as  Miss  Ch'eng  left  the  table. 

Of  all  he  had  Lord  Ashford  loved  and  knew  his 
pictures  best.  Ancestor  worship  is  not  a  conscious 
English  trait.  But  that  Chinese  characteristic  is  deep- 
rooted  in  the  family  loyalty  of  many  an  English  aris- 
tocrat, though  it  expresses  itself  but  mutely  and  along 
lines  distinctly  non-Chinese.  But  as  Ch'eng  Tzu  went 
with  him  from  canvas  to  canvas  the  race-barrier  be- 

344 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         245 

tween  them  seemed  less  to  her  than  she  could  have 
credited  even  an  hour  ago.  She  realized — it  was  patent 
— that  this  man  loved  his  great  possessions — his  homes 
and  lands,  his  tenants,  the  treasures  stored  and  cher- 
ished in  old  rooms,  because  his  ancestors  had  gathered 
them  together,  and  lived  in  them  for  him.  He  ac- 
cepted his  wealth,  his  high  position,  with  the  unques- 
tioning simplicity  of  a  well-bred,  unself conscious  child. 
Above  all,  he  loved  his  pictures — his  face  quickened 
at  them  as  until  now  she  had  only  seen  it  quicken  for 
her.  And  presently  she  saw  that  he  loved  the  pic- 
tures for  what  they  told  rather  than  for  what  they 
were,  for  the  beauty  they  recorded  rather  than  for 
the  beauties  of  color  and  line  that  were  their  own. 
That  drew  the  Chinese  girl  closer  to  him  than  she 
had  felt  before.  But  the  pictures  themselves  left  her 
a  little  cold.  And  he  felt  it,  and  presently  he  said 
so,  and  asked  her  why. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  laughed  a  little — a  little  sadly  but  not 
unproudly,  and  sitting  down  on  a  wide,  low  window- 
seat,  knotted  her  hands  upon  her  knee,  and  answered 
frankly,  with  a  gentle  shake  of  her  head  that  set  jade 
and  an  opal  quivering  gently,  "It  is  because  I  am  Chi- 
nese, I  think.  Your  pictures  are  very  beautiful,  Lord 
Ash  ford.  But  I  think  them  dead.  There  is  scarcely 
a  picture  in  a  gallery  in  Europe  that  seems  to  me  quite 
alive,  or  quite  to  get  its  message  through." 

"Not  even  the  Turners  ?" 

Tzu  smiled,  and  shook  her  head.  "Color  isn't  move- 
ment. It  isn't  even  life.  Our  masters  spare  color 
more  than  they  use  it.  They  never  crowd  a  fore- 
ground, because  their  pictures  are  designed  to  make  us 
look  off  and  through  them  to  the  sky,  and  mist  and 
hill  beyond — to  show  us  the  loveliness  beyond  the  silk 


246        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

even  more  than  the  beauty  instanced  on  it — the  soul 
beyond  the  line.  Your  pictures  seem  to  me  still-life — 
their  clouds  never  shift,  their  atmosphere  is  paint,  the 
water-wheels  never  turn,  their  torrents  never  break 
or  foam,  even  the  flowers  in  a  valley,  or  at  the  gorge's 
edge,  are  like  flowers  in  a  woman's  hat  in  a  shopwindow, 
they  never  tremble  in  the  wind,  they  don't  grow,  they 
are  sewed  on — most  of  all,  I  think,  your  pictures  have 
no  wind.  And  their  foregrounds  are  clotted  with  a 
crowd  of  things  that  hold  the  eye  from  the  better 
things  beyond.  Your  pictures  are  still-life,  ours  are 
thought.  Yours  show  the  artist's  skill,  ours  show  us 
nature.  In  a  landscape  of  Ma  Yuan's  you  can  hear 
the  wind.  Do  I  boast  too  much,  Lord  Ashf ord  ?  You 
asked  me  to  say." 

"By  Jove" — there  was  room  on  the  window  seat  for 
two — "you  have  surprised  me,  though!" 

"You  thought  there  were  no  pictures  in  China?" 
She  mocked  him,  but  there  was  friendship  in  the  mock- 
ing. 

"Did  you  think  there  were  many  in  Europe  before 
you  came?"  Jack  retorted.  "Had  you  ever  heard  of 
the  Sistine  Madonna?" 

The  girl  laughed  merrily.  "That's  fair.  No,  Lord 
Ashford,  I  didn't  know  there  was  a  Europe  until  I 
was  eight,  and  my  great-grandmother  told  me  I  was 
going  there — and  all  I  ever  gathered  of  it  in  my  own 
country  was  that  it  was  full  of  soldiers  and  mission- 
aries and — and  peculiar  women.  No,  I  had  never 
heard  of  Raphael,  of  Turner  or  of  Tintoretto.  But  I 
have  been  industrious  here.  And  I  have  tried  to  study 
your  art.  In  Europe  pictures  are  gulped  and  talked 
about.  In  China  pictures  are  read  and  felt.  You 
would  think  our  pictures  rigmaroles.    We  think  yours 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        247 

scraps.  Our  greatest  pictures  are  long  scrolls.  We 
unroll  and  re-roll  them  bit  by  bit,  and  read  them  as 
you  read  a  book.  Ours  tell  a  story,  yours,  at  best,  an 
incident.  Ours  show  nature,  as  a  man  sees  it  stretch- 
ing slowly  through  a  wood  or  by  a  river.  Yours  cut 
a  piece  out  of  nature,  and  put  it  in  a  frame,  and  hang 
it  up  to  dress  a  wall.  Nature  does  not  cut  a  tree  and 
a  brook  out  of  her  panorama  and  frame  the  fragment, 
and  hang  it  on  a  wall,  and  say,  *0h,  look !'  or  a  mo- 
ment out  of  a  life,  and  call  it  a  story.  Our  figure- 
pictures  are  novels.    Yours  are  short  stories." 

She  left  the  window-seat  and  went  back  to  his  pic- 
tures— and  found  some  pleasant  truth  to  say  of  them 
one  by  one.  And  John  Selwyn  grew  meek  in  his  sur- 
prise at  what  she  knew  of  art — an  alien  art.  He  had 
brought  her  here  to  show  her  his  pictures,  but  she 
was  showing  them  to  him. 

He  lured  her  back  to  the  window-seat,  as  soon  as 
he  dared,  and  when  he  asked  it,  Ch'eng  Tzu  told  him 
something — not  much^ — of  Chinese  pictures  and  of  the 
artists  who  had  painted  them.  He  tried  to  follow  her 
— but  much  of  it  was  a  little  difficult,  and  all  of  it  was 
embarrassingly  new.  The  music  of  the  girFs  voice 
reached  and  pierced  him,  but  like  the  European  paint- 
ers she'd  strictured,  not  much  of  her  message  got 
through.  He  had  never  heard  of  great  Ma  Yuan  or 
of  Ku  K'ai-Chih,  and  English  ears  find  strange  Chi- 
nese names  hard  to  catch  when  heard  for  the  first 
time,  English  memories  find  them  even  more  difficult 
to  remember.  But  he  began  to  suspect  something  of 
how  much  this  wonderful  girl  of  twenty  knew,  and 
to  surmise  that  her  exquisite  beauty  of  mind  and 
person — the  fine  finish  of  each  delicate  feature — was 
but  the  natural,  simple  flowering  of  the  long  culture 


248        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

of  a  great  race — the  imperial  culture  of  an  imperial 
people.  And  he  began  to  sense  how  little  he  knew 
of  many  things  of  supreme  interest  and  value.  That 
message  at  least — and  she  had  no  thought  to  give 
it — Chinese  Tzu  did  get  through,  as  they  sat  together 
on  the  window-seat,  the  storm  beating  on  the  panes,  the 
great  gallery  glowing  with  electric  lights. 

He  still  thanked  God  that  he  was  English — as  well 
such  English  may — nothing  could  prick  him  there. 
But  a  Chinese  girl  with  crippled  feet  had  jarred  his 
old  insularity  and  cut  it  to  the  quick.  She  had  stirred 
his  senses,  and  delighted  his  eyes  from  the  first.  To- 
day she  had  quickened  his  mind,  and  had  made  to  it  a 
gift. 

In  speaking  of  a  picture  she'd  seen  at  home,  a  bull- 
finch on  a  bamboo  spray — Ting  Yuch'uan  had  painted 
it — Ch'eng  Tzu  suddenly  said  something  in  Chinese. 
Almost  he  had  laid  his  hand  on  those  tiny  apricot- 
tinted  fingers.  At  the  Chinese  words  he  drew  back. 
They  stung  him.  And  he  felt  the  gulf  between  them, 
and  a  cold  wind  from  it  in  his  face.  He  wondered 
if  Tzii  had  spoken  Chinese — he  had  not  heard  her 
do  so  before — to  remind  him  of  a  distance  that  must 
be  kept. 

Perhaps  her  soul  had,  or  some  spirit  instinct  of 
her  race.  But,  if  she  had,  she  had  done  it  uncon- 
sciously. She  had  not  seen  the  half -approach  of  Lord 
Ashford's  hand. 

"Have  you  been  very  home-sick  here?"  Jack  said 
gently. 

"Home-sick?  Scarcely  that — at  least  not  very.  I 
was  so  young.  Home  has  been  more  a  bright  memory, 
and  a  happy  promise,  than  an  aching  need.    But,  oh! 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        249 

so  lonely.    It  has  been  hard,  my  loneliness — so  cruelly 
alone." 

"But  you  have  friends  here — of  your  own  people?" 
*'None.  My  old  tutor  is  in  London  still.  But  I  see 
less  and  less  of  him.  And  we  were  never  comrades. 
There  is  no  one  of  my  kindred  here.  I  am  the  only 
Ch^eng  in  exile — I  have  a  Chinese  woman  with  me  in 
London — a  companion  in  some  surface  ways,  but  not 
a  friend — a  slave  girl  a  few  years  older  than  I  am^ 
My  great-grandmother  had  her  educated  well,  that  she 
might  live  with  me  here,  and  speak  Chinese  with  me 
every  day.  She  is  near  me  always  in  London — in  the 
house.  But — she's  a  slave,  a  big-footed  woman.  I 
have  no  friends.  And  I  have  never  had  a  playmate^ 
since  I  left  home — not  many  then,  for  I  had  to  work 
too  hard.    And  I  often  long  to  play." 

"But  at  Lady  Mary^s — you  were  there '* 

"I  had  the  twins — just  babies^ — no  friends  among 
the  girls." 

"But  surely — why  Elenore  loved  you " 

"She  was  very  kind  to  me.  Most  of  them  were. 
But  I  never  knew  any  of  them.  And  none  of  them 
knew  me.     I  know  no  one  in  England." 

Ashford  was  moved.  "Your  Chinese  maid — I  have 
not  seen  her — is  she  not  with  you  here?" 

Miss  Ch'eng  laughed.  "Mung  Panii?  No,  indeed. 
I  have  Vail,  my  English  woman,  with  me  here.  She 
does  not  fit  in,  in  an  English  servant's  hall — Mung 
Panii.  I  never  take  Panii  to  a  country  house.  How  it 
rains,  Lord  Ashford.    It's  a  gorgeous  storm." 

"Yes,"  he  said  heartily.  He  was  grateful  to  the 
storm,  as  Tom  had  been.  Then,  "Your  porcelains," 
he  began — knowing,  as  he  thought,  something  of  them, 


250        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

and  thinking  perhaps  to  bear  some  share  less  ignorant  in 
talk  of  them — and  he  would  show  her  the  Chinese  vases 
in  the  yellow  room  some  day — she  would  be  delighted 
with  them. 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  pushed  the  porcelains  aside  with 
an  almost  contemptuous  gesture  of  a  jeweled  hand. 
"Our  porcelains  are  a  minor  art — just  a  reflection  and 
a  record  of  the  worthier  arts;  something  of  a  partial 
catalog,"  she  said,  moving  to  the  door. 

He  dismissed  the  showing  of  the  vases.  "But,  won't 
you  stay  a  little  longer — and  tell  me  more  ?"  he  begged. 

"I  must  go,"  the  girl  said.  "I  have  a  letter  to 
write." 

"Write  it  after  lunch." 

Tzu  shook  her  head.  "I  shall  be  very  busy  after 
hmch,  dressing  for  Elenore's  ball." 

"But  you'can't  dress  from  lunch  till  dinner!" 

"Every  moment  of  it  until  tea.  No  dinner  for  me 
to-night.  Just  a  biscuit  and  a  tea-pot  in  my  room. 
I  make  a  Chinese  toilet  for  to-night.  It  takes  many 
hours." 

"Why?"  he  said  a  little  lamely — ^perhaps  a  little 
gauchely. 

"Because  I  am  Chinese,  Lord  Ashford.  To  do  honor 
to  Elenore — she  was  very  good  to  me  at  school — and 
to  do  honor  to  myself.  I  am  Chinese,  and  I  do  not 
wish  my  friends  to  forget  it — if  any  one  could  be 
so  blind " 

Ashford  bowed,  and  drew  aside — that  she  might  pass 
and  go. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

JOHN  SELWYN  smoked  more  than  was  good  for 
him  that  afternoon — and  as  a  host  he  was  so  remiss 
that  it  amounted  to  not  being  one,  and  to  a  rudeness 
that  was  all  the  more  because  it  was  not  intended. 

No  one  saw  him  after  lunch.  Tom  failed  to  find 
him  when  Nell  ordered  it.  It  was  Burton  that  found 
him  at  last,  and  only  Burton  knew  in  what  scant  time, 
and  how  ill-temperedly  Ashford  had  dressed  for 
dinner. 

Tzu  in  Chinese  clothes!  He  wished  she  wasn't 
going  to  do  it.  He  hated  it.  He  wondered  why 
he  hated  it.  He  wondered  why  she  did  it.  Over  his 
third  pipe  he  concluded  that  he  hated  it  because  he 
foresaw  how  all  the  county  apes  would  stare  at  her, 
and  nudge  and  gibber,  as  they  did  at  some  new 
creature  at  the  Zoo.  It  was  a  feeble  and  an  unjust 
conclusion.  It  was  years  since  any  one  of  Elenore's 
well-born  guests  had  favored  the  Zoo  and  not  one  of 
them  was  ill-mannered  enough  to  nudge.  Over  pipe 
number  five  he  concluded  that  Miss  Ch'eng  was  doing 
it  in  rebuke  of  him,  and  to  keep  him  in  his  place. 
Good  Lord,  she  needn't  have  troubled.  He'd  thought 
of  little  but  race-barriers  for  a  week  now.  He  told 
his  seventh  pipe  that  he  didn't  give  a  damn  for  that  or 
anything  else.  And  when  Burton  interrupted  a  last 
pipeful  Ashford  flung  it  away,  and  ordered  the  man 
to  find  a  Johnnie  who  could  sell  decent  tobacco,  which 
the  tobacconist  in  present  possession  of  his  patronage 
damn  well  didn't. 

251 


252        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Ashford  was  mistaken  about  Tzii.  She  was  putting 
on  her  Chinese  robes  in  self-defense  against  self — 
to  remind  herself,  and,  in  a  qualm  of  conscience  to 
show  herself  to  him  as  she  was.  But  it  was  an  act 
of  honesty,  not  an  act  of  rebuke  or  warning.  It  was 
herself  she  feared,  it  was  she  herself  whom  she  wished 
to  warn.  She  trusted  Lord  Ashford  not  to  overlook, 
much  less  overleap  the  sharp-spiked  racial  barrier. 
But  it  was  her  pride — and  her  alarm — to-night  to  lose 
Miss  Ch'eng,  to  be  again  Ch'eng  Tzu  the  great-grand- 
daughter of  Ch'eng  Yiin — a  girl  born  in  Ho-nan, 
going  back  to  Ho-nan. 

At  the  court  of  St.  James  she  wore  her  native 
dress — because  it  privileged  her  to  cover  arms  and 
neck — but  she  had  not  cared  to  wear  it  elsewhere, 
except  in  her  own  house — and  not  there  when  she 
had  guests.  She  still  thought  her  own  dress  both 
more  comfortable  and  more  beautiful  than  the  dress 
of  European  women,  but  for  some  reason,  which  she 
could  not  have  explained,  she  preferred  to  keep  it 
to  herself.  Probably  in  this  Ch'eng  Tzu's  taste  wa^ 
at  fault.  The  European  and  American  Christian 
missionaries — the  men  in  pigtails  and  second-hand 
Chinese  garb,  the  women  dressed  as  amahs  or  Chinese 
frail,  were  the  sorriest  sights  and  the  silliest  that  the 
much-seeing  streets  of  Shanghai  ever  saw.  And 
Ch'eng  Tzu  would  have  kept  her  Chinese  maiden 
state  in  Europe  with  more  dignity  in  a  Chinese  dress. 
But  she  had  been  sent  to  England  when  a  child — and 
by  the  time  the  choice  of  her  garments  had  been 
altogether  in  her  control  she  had  grown  accustomed 
to  wearing  clothes  such  as  all  the  girls  about  her  wore. 

But  to-night  she  would  be  a  looker-on  in  England. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        253 

and  attend  an  English  function  as  a  Chinese  guest, 
in  her  true  colors. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  had  never  dressed  her  own  hair — and 
her  English  maid  had  never  dressed  it  in  Chinese 
style.  But  between  them  they  accomplished  it  at  last. 
A  Chinese  coiffeuse  might  have  looked  at  it  askance, 
but  Vail  thought  it  quite  Chinesey.  Secretly  Tzu 
wondered  if  it  would  keep  up.  But  wonderful  as  it 
was,  it  was  secure  enough.  Vail  was  no  bungler. 
The  diamonds  and  the  yellow  honeysuckle  sprays,  the 
dangling  pearls,  the  carved  and  glimmering  jades,  the 
tassels,  and  the  pins  encrusted  with  blue  kingfisher 
feathers  were  fast  and  safe  in  an  immovable  founda- 
tion. 

The  jade-green  wide-legged  trousers,  embroidered 
with  wistaria  in  its  natural  colors,  the  overrobe  of 
rose,  fur-edged,  a  jeweled  dragon  on  each  side,  the 
vest  of  crimson  crepe  powdered  with  diamonds,  and 
the  top-coatee  of  clear,  soft  blue  sewn  with  pearls — 
a  paneled,  almost  skirt-shaped  garment  that  hung 
almost  to  the  lower  edge  of  the  jade-green  trousers — 
and  all  the  jewels  of  her  station  blazing  about  her, 
made  a  picture  such  as  few  there  had  ever  seen  before. 
The  little  hands  were  lost  beneath  their  rings.  And 
gems  enough  to  enrich  any  crown  in  Europe  might 
have  been  spared  from  her  breast  and  not  been  missed. 
A  messenger  had  brought  most  of  them  from  London 
the  day  before.  Miss  Ch'eng  had  brought  no  such 
an  array  with  her  to  the  country  house. 

These  were  not  the  treasured  jewels  of  the  Ch'engs, 
or  any  part  of  them.  Ch'eng  Yiin  had  not  deemed  it 
necessary  to  send  heirlooms  to  Europe — though  she 
had  yielded  to  little  Tzu's  request  for  Ma  Yuan's 


254        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

herons.  But  Yiin  had  sent  before  her  death,  a  case 
of  ornaments  new-bought,  in  readiness  for  the  first 
attendance  of  Miss  Ch'eng  at  the  EngUsh  Court.  Tzu 
had  never  worn  so  many  before — and  these  were  not 
a  half.  Her  tiny  fan  had  taken  an  artist  a  year  to 
paint,  an  ivory-carver  a  year  to  stick.  The  tiny  shoes 
were  red  as  dye  could  stain  satin,  and  to-night  they 
were  plainer  than  she  often  wore,  their  brilliant  color 
not  cloaked  by  embroidery  or  ornament — except  for  a 
cluster  of  loose-hanging  pearls  that  clicked  as  she 
walked.    Tzu  wished  to  emphasize  her  feet. 

She  was  dressed  now — all  but  the  paint.  The  paints, 
red,  white  and  rose,  lay  ready  on  their  tray  of  glass. 
Vail  waited  for  her  mistress'  order,  half  hoping  that 
Miss  Ch'eng  intended  to  paint  herself.  A  touch  of 
rouge,  an  eyebrow  pencil,  liquid  cream,  enamel — Vail 
was  deft  enough  with  those — but  these  Chinese 
pigments  she  doubted  her  skill  to  use.  Ch'eng  Tzu 
did  intend  to  paint  herself.  She  put  her  hand  out — 
and  drew  it  back,  blushed  a  little — and  walked  away. 
She  would  wear  no  paint.  She  couldn't  do  it. 
Loyalty  and  self -revelation  had  gone  far  enough.  And 
she  made  no  doubt  she'd  look  strange  enough  to 
English  eyes.     She  almost  looked  strange  to  her  own. 

Tom  Granville  saw  her  first,  and  hurried  to  her. 
"By  Jove,"  he  exclaimed,  "yo^  ^^^  some  picture.  You 
ought  to  wear  this  sort  of  thing  always." 

"I  believe  I  ought,"  Tzii  smiled,  but  there  was  sad- 
ness in  her  smile. 

Ashford  had  been  watching  for  her  for  some  time 
— since  before  the  first  guest  came.  It  still  rained 
with  unabated  fury,  but  the  county  had  come.  The 
great  rooms  were  crowded  now. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        255 

Jack  saw  her  as  she  smiled  up  at  Tom,  but  he  did 
not  come  to  them  at  once,  but  stood  and  watched  her. 
This  suited  her  best — he  saw  that  at  once,  and  recog- 
nized it  with  a  selfish  pang.  The  barrier  hardened 
and  was  higher.  But  his  senses  ached,  as  a  sick  man's 
for  the  fragrance  of  a  flower.  This  was  a  new  Tzii — 
but  even  lovelier  than  the  one  he  knew.  He  saw  that. 
But  even  more  a  girl  apart.  Was  this  the  girl  who 
had  ridden  with  him  neck  to  neck,  and  taken  a  hedge 
more  carelessly  than  Nell,  who  knew  more  of  the 
books  in  the  library  than  Nell  did,  as  much  of  his  own 
pictures  and  flowers  and  crops  as  he?  Was  this  the 
girl  who  spoke  his  tongue,  and  had  lived  among  his 
people  since  she  was  a  child?  Then  he  realized,  with 
a  throb  of  pleased  but  dazed  surprise,  that  she  looked  to 
him  less  un-English  so — ^more  like  some  delicate  bru- 
nette girl  of  his  own  race  wearing  "fancy  dress."  He 
had  seen  Elenore  as  a  Turkish  lady,  an  Indian  princess 
and  a  Persian  Houri, — though  he  suspected  a  Houri 
overdressed, — and  half  the  women  of  his  acquaintance 
in  what  they  thought  Eastern  dress.  Tzu  scarcely 
looked  strange  to  him.  He  went  to  her  then,  and 
offered  her  his  arm  with,  "My  dance — please." 

"I  do  not  dance.  Lord  Ashford." 

"But  you  will — a  quadrille — you  always  do,"  Captain 
Granville  insisted. 

"No— not  to-night." 

"But  why  not?"  Elenore's  fiance  persisted. 

"Chinese  ladies  do  not  dance,"  she  told  him.  "We 
hire  our  dancing-girls,  or  have  slaves  to  do  it." 

"But  you  are  in  England,"  Tom  blundered  on. 

"No,"  Ch'eng  Tzu  said,  "I  am  always  in  China 
really." 

"Then  let  me  find  you  a  seat,"  Ashford  begged, 


256        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

offering  her  his  arm  again,  "where  we  can  watch  the 
nautch." 

P  *'Yes,  I  shall  like  to  watch/'  Tzii  answered.  "Will 
you  take  me  to  the  Duchess?  She  said  I  might  sit 
with  her,  when  she  had  smiled  the  county  in." 

But,  because  she  was  in  Chinese  dress — and  her 
hands  bare,  she  would  not  take  his  arm — or  even 
Captain  Granville's,  whom  she  treated  with  a  lighter 
camaraderie  than  she  did  any  other  man.  She  walked 
between  them  through  the  rooms — until  they  found 
the  Duchess,  flirting  with  the  Dean — or  so  the  Duchess 
said,  and  the  Dean  did  not  contradict  her. 

Men— and  women  too — buzzed  about  the  Chinese 
girl,  but  no  one  seemed  surprised  at  her  dress.  English 
society  has  few  surprises  left  it.  And  no  one  seemed 
to  notice  those  jade-green  trousers.  Why  should  they? 
Half  the  girls  there  rode  in  divided  skirts — or  less. 
And  Tzu's  trousers  were  almost  as  wide  and  far  less 
revealing  than  the  latest  thing  in  English  skirts.  Cut 
to  show  her  shoes,  still  they  kept  her  stockings  private, 
and  were  almost  hidden  by  the  rose  and  dragoned 
tunic.  It  was  a  gorgeous,  jeweled,  girlish  figure  that 
paused  beside  the  Duchess  w^hen  it  had  curtsied  a 
little  proudly  to  Mr.  Dean.  But  no  man  spoke  pres- 
ently in  the  smoking  room  of  her  jade-green  wistaria- 
embroidered  garment.  None  thought  of  it.  There 
was  a  virginity  that  veiled  this  Chinese  girl  as  a  cloak, 
or  the  miraculous  raiment  of  Saint  Agnes.  And  not 
the  coarsest  coster  in  the  East  End  or  at  the  Docks 
could  have  mistaken  or  disregarded  it.  No  man  had 
ever  thought  a  rudeness  of  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzii. 
t  The  Duchess  studied  her  hair  with  a  buying  eye, 
and  planned  a  tableau  at  Albert  Hall  for  a  pet  charity. 

Lord  Ash  ford  left  them  soon.     He  came  back  more 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        257 

than  once,  but  not  to  stay  long.  He  must  play  host 
to-night — in  his  own  house — Nell's  dance.  But  each 
time  he  looked  at  Ch'eng  Tzu  he  wished  the  more  that 
Sargent  might  paint  her  so — or  some  lesser  great  who 
would  not  scorn  to  repeat  minutely  each  thread  of 
those  embroideries,  each  pearl  and  jade,  and  that  the 
picture  might  hang  forever  his — in  the  gallery  up- 
stairs where  she  had  told  him  of  "fluidity  of  lines," 
''atmospheric  effects,"  old  chaps  with  remarkable 
names,  and  the  soullessness  of  Turner  and  Tintoretto. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

IT  was  in  the  garden,  almost  where  he  had  seen 
her  first,  that  the  end  came — the  first  great  punctu- 
ation in  two  lives.  Tzu  was  sewing — she  often  sewed 
— sitting  on  an  old  bench,  a  little  shaded  from  the  sun, 
the  flowers  blazing  for  yards  about  her.  The  day 
was  fiercely  hot,  and  the  few  guests  still  remaining 
kept  to  the  dimmer  comforts  of  the  house.  But  the 
Chinese  girl  loved  the  sunshine,  and  drank  its  hot 
wine  as  greedily  as  the  flowers  did. 

Lord  Ash  ford  was  not  looking  for  her  when  he 
came  upon  her.  He  had  weighed  it  all — realizing  his 
dilemma  at  last — and  he  had  decided  against  it.  That 
he  believed — as  he  did — that  Miss  Ch^eng  would  repulse 
any  suit  of  his — but  whetted  his  desire  to  urge  it.  He 
came  of  stock  that  took  joy  in  difliculties,  loved  un- 
tying international  knots  with  suave  diplomacy,  loved 
still  better  cutting  them  with  a  ready  sword.  He  liked 
resistance — his  metal  rang  to  it.  But  he  had  himself 
in  hand.  And  his  judgment  told  him  nay.  Ch*eng 
Tzu  had  crept  into  his  heart.  He  doubted  if  time  or 
any  other  woman  could  ever  oust  her  from  it.  Last 
night — balancing  it  all,  fighting  it  out — ^he  had  sick- 
ened a  little  at  the  thought  of  life  lived  out  without 
Tzu.  His  heart  clamored  for  her.  His  arms  ached 
for  her.  But,  if  life  without  Tzu  seemed  to  him  now 
a  something  of  emptiness,  and  a  pain,  life  with  her 
he  saw  as  a  difficulty  and  a  personal  satisfaction  em- 
bittered by  much !    That  their  marriage  would  be  the 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        259 

social  sensation  of  an  hour  revolted  him,  but  it  did 
not  dissuade.  For  himself  he  desired  this  girl  above 
all  else  on  earth,  beyond  every  other  possibility  of  life. 
The  soul-barriers  between  them  he  would  risk.  They 
might  be  absorbed  and  cease  to  be,  in  the  intimacy 
of  married  companionship,  begun  in  love  and  lived 
in  loyalty — if  not,  for  him,  l^er  sweetness  and  her 
charm  would  be  compensation  enough.  But  for  one 
thing,  of  which  he  tried  not  to  think,  Tzu  was  perfect 
in  her  lover's  sight.  But  his  pride  of  race  was  a  loyal 
devoted  pride,  not  a  selfish  pride.  As  an  Englishman 
he  now  saw  no  abhorrence  in  marriage  with  a  Chinese 
wife.  As  a  Selwyn  he  did.  To  put  it  bluntly — as  he 
was  clean  and  man  enough  to  put  it  to  himself — he 
reasoned  that  he  had  no  right  to  subject  the  current 
of  his  family  to  something  of  abnormality.  For  him- 
self he  would  accept  a  Chinese  wife — he  craved  such 
a  wife  now,  eagerly — but  he  shrank  from  a  Chinese 
mother  of  his  children.  His  children  had  a  right 
to  ask  of  him — to  demand  of  him — an  English  mother. 
His  ancestry  had  its  rights.  His  descendants  had 
theirs.  Even  for  himself — selfishly  he  shrank  from 
the  thought  of  calling  children  of  parentage  so  strange, 
his.  He  loved  Ch'eng  Tzu.  Would  he  love  her 
children?  He  desired  her.  He  did  not  desire  the 
children  she  might  bear.  He  faced  it  squarely.  He 
made  his  resolve.  After  Nell's  wedding  he  would 
travel :  travel  the  one  panacea  for  every  young  English- 
man at  bay  if  he  has  bank  account  sufficient.  Well — 
it's  a  wholesome  safety-valve,  and  admirable  treatment 
for  half  the  ills  of  flesh  and  hearts  and  heads  and 
nerves,  if  not  always  the  last  proof  of  grit.  His  mind 
made  up  he  went  to  bed — but  not  for  some  time  to 
sleep. 


26o        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

He  breakfasted  early  and  went  off  with  Nero  for 
a  tramp.  But  the  growing  heat  drove  man  and  dog 
back  after  an  hour  or  so.  He  put  his  dog  into  its 
quarters,  and,  feeling  another  man  for  his  exercise, 
and  not  a  little  braced  and  comforted  by  his  resolve, 
turned  down  the  path  that  skirted  between  the  trout 
brook  and  the  tulip  beds,  where  the  lilies-of-the-valley 
and  the  heliotrope  too,  kept  their  fragrant  state, — 
turned  down  the  path  and  saw  Ch'eng  Tzu  darning 
butterflies  into  a  piece  of  crash. 

She  was  his  guest. 

Might  he  sit  dow^n  ? 

He  was  her  host.     Of  course  he  might. 

"Do  you  never  feel  the  sun.  Miss  Ch'eng?" 

"But  of  course  I  do.  That  is  why  I  came  out — to 
feel  the  sun — that  and  the  flowers.  I  don't  know 
which  I  like  most." 

"Do  you  know  which  flowers  you  like  best  ?" 

"Indeed  I  do  not.  One  day  some,  others  another 
day.  To-day  the  heliotrope,  I  think,  and  those  little 
round  lily  bells.  You  like  the  roses  best  always,  Lord 
Ashford." 

"How  do  you  know  ?" 

"Because  you  are  English." 

"So  proscribed  as  all  that  are  we?  But  you  are 
wrong   for  once.     I   like  wall-flowers  best." 

"Yes, — they  are  perfect,"  Tzu  agreed.  And  how 
like  a  flower  she  looked,  he  thought,  a  delicate,  sun- 
loving  flower — as  brilliant  as  the  day  itself,  as  exquisite 
as  the  little  white  lilies  sending  their  perfume  to  mingle 
with  the  perfume  of  the  heliotrope.  She  wore 
European  dress  again — a  dress  that  was  just  suggestive 
of  the  Orient,  but  less  bizarre  than  many  English 
women  wore  that  season — a,  season  of  Japanesque 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        261 

effects  and  Muscovitish  influences.  Tzu  wore  dull, 
clear  blue  to-day — probably  every  woman  sun-hidden  in 
the  shaded  house  was  wearing  white — but  above  the 
low-cut  neck  and  the  slashings  of  the  tunic  brilliant 
embroidery  showed — ^great  cut-out  flowers  of  many 
colors  that  some  mandarin  might  have  worn  a  century 
ago.  Her  shoes  were  poppy- red  (they  matched  her 
lips)  encrusted  with  jade  and  silver  threads.  But  she 
wore  no  ornament  in  her  closely  wound  braids  to-day. 
And  he  noticed  that  for  once  she  had  no  fan. 

A  giant  lady-bird  inched  across  the  path.  "Look 
what  a  big  one/'  the  girl  said  pointing  towards  it  with 
her  shoe. 

Ash  ford  nodded,  and  looked  away.  The  deformity 
that  he  knew  snuggled  within  that  little  Chinese  shoe — 
was  always  a  revulsion  to  this  Englishman.  He  never 
saw  that  pretty  Chinese  shoe  without  visualizing  the 
hideousness  within.  He  chid  himself  for  the  lib- 
erty his  thought  took  with  that  poor  httle  maimed 
naked  foot,  a  mangled  stump  of  what  had  been 
a  foot.  But  he  could  not  mask  the  thought.  He  shrank 
from  the  thought,  and  knew  that  he  would  shrink 
from  the  veritable  sight — from  seeing  what  was 
to  him  her  only  defect — a  terrible  defect.  And  then 
he  cursed  himself  again  for  the  caddish  liberty  he 
took. 

The  girl  caught  something  of  the  shadow  on  his 
face. 

"It  seems  terrible  to  you  ?"  she  said  simply.  "It  does 
to  me  sometimes.  England  has  done  that  one  un- 
kindness  to  me.  And  I  think  that  I  shall  hate  it — and 
to  think  of  how  it  hurts  them — when  they  bind  my 
baby  daughters'  feet." 

Ashford  flushed  a  little — but  it  was  impossible  to 


262        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

misunderstand  her.  Her  maidenliness  was  unmvstak- 
able.  But  he  bit  his  lip  a  little,  man-like  a  little 
dashed,  because  her  saying  that  told  him  that  she 
considered  marriage  with  him  impossible,  or,  evermore 
probably,  had  never  thought  of  it  at  all. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  did  not  catch  his  thought  this  time, 
and  chatted  on  happily.  For  thousands  of  years  the 
girls  of  her  race  have  spoken  to  each  other  of  such 
things  quite  simply.  They  speak  to  no  man,  th% 
maidens  of  Ch'eng  Tzu's  caste.  They  are  born  for 
marriage,  and  live  in  preparation  for  it.  Maternity  is 
the  apex  of  every  Chinese  girl's  hope.  The  tiniest 
girl  toddling  across  the  sheltered  courtyard  longs  for 
and  loves  the  babies  she  is  some  day  to  bear  her 
unknown  lord.  And  she  prattles  of  them  as  innocently 
as  of  her  dolls.  And,  because  for  thousands  of  years 
the  women  of  her  clan  had  had  no  casual  speech  with 
men,  transplanted  Ch'eng  Tzii  spoke  to  men  as  she 
did  to  women.  Even  Lady  Mary  had  been  unable  to 
impress  that  habit  away.  But  it  had  mattered  but 
little,  since  the  nature  of  the  Chinese  girl  was  crystal- 
pure,  and  all  her  speech  immaculate. 

**But  it  hurts  less  than  you  would  think.  The  little 
bones  are  so  soft  then,  like  supple  cartilage.  And  we 
have  our  opium  pipes,  you  know.  Oh !  It  is  a  good 
thing  our  opium,  much  better  than  your  English  beer." 

"You  do  not  like  beer?" 

Ch'eng  Tzu  made  a  face.  "Let  us  not  speak  of  it — 
on  such  a  day.     But  oh !     I  like  your  English  flowers.'* 

IWell — let  her  talk  about  the  flowers.  Flowers  were 
safe  enough.  He  had  no  excuse  to  leave  her  yet.  And 
he  had  no  wish.  Another  hour  with  her  in  the  old 
garden  his  mother  had  loved — she'd  taught  him  to  walk 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        263 

in  the  cherry-walk — would  be  but  one  memory  more  to 
treasure — and  to  curse. 

"Tell  me  of  your  flowers,"  he  said. 

"At  home?  We  have  all  your  flowers,  I  think,  in 
Ho-nan,  and  many  that  I  have  never  seen  in  Europe. 
Oh !  I  shall  be  good  to  the  flowers,  when  I  go  home. 
It  hurts  me  to  see  how  flowers  are  neglected  here.  Two 
things  hurt  me  here — ^where  I  have  had  such  kindness, 
and  admire  so  truly — the  way  you  treat  flowers,  and 
the  way  you  treat  women." 

"Women!  By  jove.  I  say.  Miss  Ch'eng,  you  are 
pulling  my  leg." 

"It  is  a  thing  I  do  not  do." 

"But  English  women  rule  the  roost  now.  Why 
they^ll  have  the  vote  yet,  I  think." 

Ch'eng  Tzft  shrugged  a  pitying  shoulder.  "The 
vote!"  she  said  with  indescribable  contempt.  "And 
men  speak  rudely  to  them  sometimes.  I  have  heard 
it." 

"How  do  we  mistreat  our  flowers?"  Ashford  said 
hurriedly.     He  felt  safer  with  the  flowers. 

"You  do  not  make  friends  with  them.  You  never 
even  speak  to  them,  or  listen  to  them." 

Lord  Ashford  was  speechless.  But  he  tried  to 
look  less  dumbfounded  than  he  felt.  And  Tzu  talked 
on.  She  loved  her  theme.  She  liked  her  listener. 
Every  Chinese  woman  is  a  born  chatterbox.  Ch'eng 
Tzu  had  kept  her  tongue  tied  for  ten  long  years.  But 
an  affinity  she  did  not  analyze,  an  attraction  she  could 
not  resist,  a  propinquity  that  both  soothed  and  stimu- 
lated, and  a  place  that  had  seemed  to  her  from  the  first 
something  of  "home,"  gave  her  a  feeling  of  easy  com- 
radeship, and  a  naturalness  that  until  now  she  had  left 
behind — in  Ho-nan. 


264        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

And  in  that  hour  Jack  Selwyn  learned  mare  of 
Ch'eng  Tzii — and  more  of  China — than  he  had  in  the 
picture  gallery.  Because  he  loved  her,  and  too  because 
there  were  artist  and  poet  in  his  convention-cloaked 
soul ;  he  understood  her,  and  learned  in  an  hour  what 
few  Europeans  ever  learn — he  learned  what  a  living, 
throbbing  intimacy  the  Chinese  have  with  nature,  an 
intimacy  so  quick  and  convinced  that  the  Chinese  know 
that  flowers  have  loves  and  hates,  the  wind  and  mist 
temper  and  mind,  birds  souls,  and  every  natural  phe- 
nomenon or  plant  or  tree  or  creature,  friendships, 
destiny  and  immortality. 

"And  that  is  what  I  mean  by  being  good  to  the 
flowers.  One  of  our  Emperors" — even  now,  though 
for  centuries  he  had  been  a  guest  on  high,  she  did  not 
speak  his  name — "I  often  make  obeisance  to  his  spirit 
for  it— used  when  the  flowers  were  budding,  to  hav6 
music  made  to  them,  that  they  might  enjoy  it,  and 
be  the  more  beautiful  and  fragrant  when  they  bloomed: 
Was  it  not  a  great  and  gracious  thing  to  do?  When 
I  go  home,  I  think  I  shall  do  that.  Yes,  I  shall  have 
the  flutes  played  and  the  guitar  to  all  the  baby  flowers, 
and  the  young  mother  flowers,  when  the  Feast  of 
Lanterns  is  near — when  I  go  back  to  Ho-nan — soon.'* 

And  the  man  saw  that  Ch'eng  Tzii's  thought  was  in 
Ho-nan  as  she  spoke. 

He  bent  toward  Tzii,  and  laid  his  hand  softly  on  hers. 
"Tzu,"  he  said,  "you  must  not  go.  Stay  here  with 
me. 

The  girl's  face  quivered.  She  paled,  and  then  she 
flushed.  She  looked  him  shyly,  bravely  in  the  eyes — 
her  eyes  were  full  of  tears,  and  at  that  his  filled — and 
then  she  spoke. 

"My  lord,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIir 

'T^HE  garden  swayed  about  them.  The  flowers  were 
-■-  nothing  to  Ch'eng  Tzu.  She  had  forgotten  China. 
He  had  forgotten  England.  Why  not?  There  was 
no  longer  Earth — but  only  Heaven,  the  reeling  music 
of  the  spheres,  and  life's  great  elemental  passion. 

An  hour  ago  no  man  ever  had  touched  her  ungloved 
hand.  And  now  a  man  had  kissed  her  lips — her  lover 
had  kissed  her  mouth.  A  Chinese  girl  had  learned 
what  kissing  was — and  found  no  displeasure  in  it.  It 
could  not  have  happened  in  China. 

He  held  her  close.  He  put  her  from  him  a  space 
to  drink  her  loveliness  the  better,  to  learn  anew  her 
face. 

When  he  found  his  voice,  and  could  spare  his  lips 
for  mere  words,  and  said  to  her  the  passionate,  tender 
things  that  men  say  at  such  hours,  perhaps  she  heard, 
perhaps  she  understood.  At  least  she  understood  his 
voice,  and  the  message  of  his  touch.  And  when  he 
begged  her,  ''Speak  to  me,  Tzu!"  she  looked  up  with  a 

great  shyness,  and  said,  "My  lord "  as  Ting  Tzu 

had  looked  up,  and  said  to  Chii-po  in  a  Ho-nan  court- 
yard once. 

No  one  had  taught  Ch'eng  Tzu  the  immemorial 
phrase  of  Chinese  womanhood — the  vow  of  life-long 
fealty,  Chinese-old  when  Caesar  came  to  Britain.  San- 
pan  women  use  it  on  boats  in  the  crowded  harbors  and 
on  the  Chinese  rivers.  Peasant  women  say  it,  wading 
ankle-deep  in  the  wet  paddy  fields.     Probably  Ching 


266        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Kimi's  mother  said  it  to  Kublai  Khan  almost  a  thou- 
sand years  ago,  and  surely  Tze  Hsi  said  it  in  her 
crimson-veiled  girlhood  to  Hsien-Feng — the  great  oath 
of  Chinese  wifehood,  rarely  broken  or  smirched,  tell- 
ing a  people's  history,  telling  perhaps  the  secret  of  that 
people's  strengths — and  giving  perchance  in  all  the  tur- 
moil and  welter  of  ill-considered  change  and  bastard 
upheaval,  a  nation's  best  promise,  sanest  hope  of  re- 
crudescence and  permanence. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  said  it,  because  it  came — said  it  in- 
stinctively. And,  had  they  known  it,  the  old  Chinese 
words  were  to  them  a  promise — and  a  menace — of 
much. 

"My  lord,"  the  girl  said  when  he  bade  her  stay 
with  him.  "My  lord,"  she  whispered  when  he  laid 
his  face  upon  her  hair.  And  when  his  kisses  crushed 
at  last  too  sweet  upon  her  lips,  she  pushed  him  from 
her,  laughing  a  little,  and  rebuked  him  tenderly,  "My 
lord!"  And  then  Ashford  slipped  down,  one  knee 
on  the  path,  at  her  feet,  and  laid  his  head  upon  her 
knees,  crushed  her  hands  to  his  lips,  kissed  the  blue 
tunicas  linen  hem,  and  called  her — as  indeed  she  was — 
at  least  to-day — "My  Queen." 

The  house-party,  a  remnant  now — ^heard  it  cordially. 
To-morrow  the  last  of  them  were  leaving.  And  they 
would  take  with  them  two  new  things  to  talk  about 
— the  terrible  adventure  of  Lord  Ash  ford's  awful, 
murderous  dog,  and  the  English  nobleman's  engage- 
ment to  a  Chinese  girl  "who  eats  like  one  of  us,  dear, 
fabulously  rich,  and  wears  such  clothes,  ripping  good 
fun."  Yes,  on  the  whole,  the  County  liked  it — even 
if  Mr.  Dean  did  shake  his  head  a  little  sadly — and  the 
London  papers  liked   it  even  better,   good   for  any 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         267 

number  of  varied,  almost  sensational,  and  quite  inac- 
curate, silly-season  pars. 

Captain  Granville  was  distressed — but  hid  it. 
Elenore  was  hopeful,  and  cried  a  little.  The  servants 
were  vexed — it  seemed  to  them  a  lowering  of  their 
caste.  The  Duchess  was  neutral  but  kind.  She  had 
a  high-bred  gift  for  minding  her  own  immediate  busi- 
ness, a  gift  the  fairies  do  not  always  bestow  with  the 
strawberry's  pretty  leafage,  she  had  no  foolishness  to 
weep  for  milk  already  spilt.  She  could  stand  it,  if 
Jack  could;  the  girl  was  lady-like,  and,  best  of  all, 
was  a  compatriot  of  her  Grace's  own  dear  darling 
doggies.  China  and  Japan  were  all  one  to  Ann, 
Duchess  of  Killshire. 

Three  Chinese  in  London,  when  they  heard  it,  liked 
it  less.  Sheng-Liu  frowned  at  the  Morning  Post, 
and  then  turned  to  the  editorials.  Sheng-Liu  shared 
the  Duchess'  attitude  to  milk  already  spilled.  Wang 
No  cried  out  in  rage,  threw  himself  upon  the  ground 
and  writhing  there  clawed  a  rug  until  its  worthless 
tatters  looked  as  if  some  wild  beast  had  shredded  them. 
Mung  Panii  liked  it  even  less.  She  made  no  sound. 
She  gave  no  sign.  But  her  despair  was  great  and 
cold.  She  had  failed  her  mistress  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin 
— that  crime  not  less,  but  more,  because  the  lady  Yiin 
no  longer  lived.  Only  suicide  was  left  for  Mung 
Panii — she  would  not  live  on  in  England,  she  could 
not  go  home  without  Ch'eng  Tzu  with  whom  Ch'eng 
Yun  had  bade  her  stay.  Suicide  alone,  remained — 
but  first  she'd  kill  the  English  lord  that  had  stolen 
Ch'eng  Tzu's  sanity  and  despoiled  her  pride.  And  the 
slave  woman  meant  both  these  gruesome,  desperate 
acts,  and  intended  them  calmly. 


268        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

John  Selwyn  and  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  were  very  happy. 
From  his  first  word  Tzu  had  had  no  doubt.  And  he 
had  none  now.  Ecstasy  and  content  had  taken  the  place 
of  reason  and  of  doubt.  If  doubt  still  skulked  near — 
ready  to  his  call — he  never  looked  doubt's  way.  To 
have  doubted  now  would  have  been  disloyal  to  Tzu, 
unchivalrous  to  the  woman  he  had  chosen  and  wooed, 
the  girl  so  alone  in  England  but  for  him,  so  soon  to 
be  his  wife.  Loyalty  was  irradicably  of  his  blood. 
He  was  chivalrous  with  the  perfect  quiet  of  long  gen- 
erations gone  and  to  come. 

Ash  ford  urged  almost  immediate  marriage.  (Was 
he  afraid  to  wait?)  Tzu  consented  readily.  It  was 
her  Chinese  instinct,  that  marriage  should  precede 
courtship.  She  agreed  readily,  and  left  all  the  rest 
to  him. 

The  enormity  of  the  girl's  wealth  aggrieved  him. 
When  he  told  her  so  she  smiled  and  said  that  when 
she  was  his  wife  Sheng  Liu  should  journey  to  China 
for  her,  and  give  back  her  vast  estate  to  some  kinsman 
of  her  blood — unless  indeed  some  act  of  her  great 
grandmother's  had  already  confirmed  it  to  Ch'eng 
Wen.  Tzu  thought  that  was  not  so.  And  it  was  not. 
Wen  would  have  his  ample  fortune — through  his  wife 
— ^but  not  before  their  marriage. 

Two  days  they  spent  in  their  garden,  with  the 
flowers.  And  then  Ch'eng  Tzii  hurried  back  to  Lon- 
don— the  time  was  brief — and  John  gave  himself  up 
to  lawyers  and  bailiffs. 

In  the  month  that  followed,  they  met  but  twice. 
And  from  each  of  these  short  times  Miss  Ch'eng 
returned  to  her  letters  and  her  dressmakers  with  a 
dimpling  face,  and  from  them  her  lover  took  a  deeper 
contentment,   a   strengthened   assurance — which   had 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         269 

needed  no  strengthening — that  he  had  made  no  mistake, 
and  he  rested  on  it  as  on  a  great  rock. 

When  they  were  together  she  yielded  herself  to  his 
caress  more  than  a  Chinese  girl  should  have  done. 
But  Fate  had  thrust  her  far  from  China  when  she  was 
but  a  child.  She  yielded  herself  to  his  caress  less 
than  any  English  girl  who  loved  him  would  have 
done — granting  Ash  ford  but  a  tithe  of  what  Elenore 
Selwyn  granted  to  Tom.  But  Tzu  had  centuries  of 
Chinese  conduct  and  ideal  behind  her.  And  John 
Selwyn  did  not  love  her  less,  long  for  her  less,  because 
of  the  distance  she  kept. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  loved  with  a  great  love.  It  surged 
and  claimed  her.  Ashford  was  splendidly  lovable 
— and  she  had  known — beyond  formal  acquaintance — 
no  other  man. 

And  in  the  soul-things,  the  traits  of  character,  that 
deeply  matter,  the  Chinese  and  the  English  are  of  all 
races  the  two  closest  of  kin. 

And  the  girl  was  greatly  softened,  all  the  delicate 
hardness  that  exile  and  loneliness  had  crusted  on  her 
warmed  and  gone.  And  her  love  was  exquisitely 
loyal.  An  unsavory  matrimonial  cleavage  enthralled 
May  fair  just  then.  "Mary  Chester  of  all  people! 
And  Lord  Westlake,  dear !    What  are  we  coming  to  ?" 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  aiade  no  comment — least  of  all, 
"It  could  not  have  happened  in  China."  She  thought 
it.     But  the  phrase  would  not  pass  her  lips  again. 

No  one  saw  Wang  No. 

Mung  Panii  watched  and  waited,  and  plotted. 

Tzu*s  wedding  day  was  fixed  for  mid-October,  Ele- 
nore's  two  weeks  later. 

Early  in  October  Lord  Ashford  kept  his  birthday 


270        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

at  Ashford  Manor, — the  largest,  stateliest,  of  his 
places,  a  terraced,  feudal  place,  that  looked  a  castle  and 
a  fortress  with  its  draw-bridge,  moat,   and  turrets. 

Tzu  spent  his  birthday  there,  trebly  chaperoned  by 
the  Duchess,  Mrs.  Marston  and  Lady  Mary.  No  one 
of  her  race  was  with  her,  but  Nell  clung  to  her  lov- 
ingly. And  Ashford's  kin  and  friends  were  gathered 
from  all  the  Kingdom  to  wish  him  luck  and  to  meet 
his  bride. 

Ashford  Manor  sheltered  by  trees  and  hills,  on  the 
warm  South  coast,  faced  the  sea.  And  it  was  warmer 
now  than  October  often  was  even  here. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  had  not  seen  this  new  home  of  hers 
before.  She  admired  it  greatly.  Any  girl  must  have 
done  so.  But  she  thought  that  she  should  love  the 
Grange  best  always — ^perhaps,  because — and  she  told 
Jack  so ;  and  he  caught  her  to  him,  and  kissed  her. 

She  had  come  just  before  lunch,  and  was  to  leave 
the  next  day  after  breakfast — ^they  not  to  meet  again 
until  she  went  to  him  in  Church. 

London  had  wondered  how  and  where  Miss  Ch'eng's 
wedding  would  be.  She  had  often  attended  church 
with  the  other  girls  at  Lady  Mary's.  But  Lady  Mary 
knew,  and  so  did  all  the  girls,  that  nothing  of  the 
Christian  faith  had  ever  claimed  Ch'eng  Tzu.  She 
had  spoken  of  it  to  Ashford  some  weeks  ago,  and 
had  told  him  how  entirely,  in  observance,  she  wished 
to  follow  him.  And  he  had  kissed  her,  and  said  that 
that  was  quite  all  right,  and  had  added  that  his  wife 
need  never  play  the  hypocrite.  John  Selwyn  was  no 
zealot.  Loyalty  and  riding-straight  were  a  nearer  re- 
ligion to  him  than  was  his  church. 

London  wondered  if  Miss  Ch'eng  would  have  a 
Chinese  wedding.     London  rather  hoped  she  would. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        271 

And  Fleet  Street  and  all  its  E.C.4  offshoots  prayed 
heaven  it  might — and  polished  up  their  cameras. 

But  when  he  spoke  to  her  of  the  where  and  how, 
she  said,  "In  your  Church — just  as  your  mother  was." 
And  had  added,  smiling  in  his  face,  "You  would  make 
a  queer  sort  of  'Chinaman,*  Jack,  so  I  intend  to  be  al- 
together an  Englishwoman." 

Tom  was  booked  best  man,  of  course. 

Captain  Worthing  was  to  give  the  bride  away.  Lady 
Mary  had  suggested  the  Chinese  Minister — but  Tzu 
had  smiled,  a  Httle  sadly,  and  shaken  her  head. 

Tzu  was  to  be  married  in  a  traveling  dress — she 
could  not  bring  herself  to  begin  her  new  life  in  the 
white  that  Chinese  widows  wear — and  there  was  to 
be  no  reception.  But  it  would  be  a  very  splendid  trav- 
eling dress,  and  the  church  a  dream  and  feast  of 
flowers. 

Ch'eng  Tzii  wore  no  rings  now-— only  the  one  great 
gem  that  Jack  had  given  her. 

He  had  begged  that  to-night  she  would  wear  her 
Chinese  dress  again — and  she  had  promised,  not  too 
willingly,  that — well,  perhaps  she  would,  for  the  last 
time. 

And  when  she  came  to  him,  in  the  library,  as  he 
had  begged,  there  was  compromise  most  un-Chinese 
in  her  Chinese  toilet.  She  wore  only  one  color,  a 
lemon  that  showed  her  skin  almost  white.  Her  robe 
was  long;  it  hid  her  feet.  Her  hands  were  gloved — 
only  one  ring  stretched  her  left  glove  out  of  shape. 
And  the  pearls  were  twisted  English-fashion  in  her 
hair.  And  she  wore  no  other  ornament,  except  an 
English  rose  that  he  had  picked  for  her.  And,  most 
un-Chinese  of  all,  a  train  was  slung  free  from  her 


272        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

shoulders,  a  long,  straight  train  of  lace,  lemon-lined. 

"Take  me  into  the  garden,  Jack,"  she  said.  "We've 
almost  half  an  hour  to  spare." 

"No,"  Ashford  told  her — his  first  refusal  of  any- 
even  hinted  wish  of  hers — "not  until  after  dinner, 
dear.  There  is  something  there  you  must  not  see, 
until  after  dinner." 

Tzu  laughed  and  went  with  him  to  the  drawing- 
room,  and  was  very  gracious  to  his  guests.  And  all 
the  men  admired  her  mightily. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

>T0W/'  Ashford  said,  following  her  from  dinner, 
^  leaving  Granville  to  shepherd  the  tipplers  at  the 
table  the  women  had  left. 

Vail  at  Lord  Ashford's  order  was  waiting  for  them 
in  the  hall.  He  took  the  wrap  the  maid  had  been 
holding,  and  tucked  the  soft,  silvery  chinchilla  about 
Miss  Ch'eng,  caught  the  long  lacy  train  over  one  arm, 
put  his  other  arm  about  Ch'eng  Tzu's  shoulder,  and 
led  her  so  along  the  hall,  out  through  the  door  onto 
the  wide  stone  loggia. 

The  moon  rode  high  and  clear,  cutting  the  dark, 
distant  sea  with  a  wide  belt  of  rippled  gold;  but  the 
moon  looked  far  and  pale;  a  painted  inanimate  thing 
compared  with  the  thousands  of  living  lights  that 
glowed  on  every  branch  of  every  tree.  Even  the  tall 
autumn  flowers  had  every  plant  its  tiny  lantern.  The 
terraces  were  picked  out  with  light,  the  outlines  of  the 
great  house  sparkled  with  blue  and  green  and  ruby 
lights.  Each  tree  and  shrub  was  heavy  with  a  fruitage 
of  radiant  lanterns.  They  swung  fairy-like  above  the 
grass.  A  junk  of  lanterned  lights  rode  on  the  moat. 
The  draw-bridge  was  jeweled  with  a  net-work  of  lan- 
terns, each  lantern  lit. 

It  was  a  carnival  of  colored  lights.  Half  the  shops 
in  Britain  that  stocked  Chinese  lanterns  had  been  ran- 
sacked for  these.  An  army  of  decorators  had  hung 
them  up,  busy  at  it  from  sunset  till  now.  Round 
paper  lanterns,  tall  cylinders,  odd  shaped  ones,  great 

273 


274        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

and  small,  alone,  festooned,  in  flower-like  groups, 
bouquets  of  lanterns — and  every  lantern  lit,  solitary 
lanterns  skillfully  suspended  as  if  floating  in  the  air, 
crinkled  lanterns,  boat-shaped  lanterns,  smooth  lan- 
terns, painted  lanterns,  tasseled  lanterns,  fluted  lan- 
terns, bell-shaped  lanterns — from  every  point  and  crev- 
ice, w^here  string  v^ould  catch  or  venire  hold,  some 
Chinese  lantern  swung  and  glowed ;  for  glowing  acres 
the  old  place  glittered  with  their  light. 

Her  lover  felt  Ch'eng  Tzu  tremble. 

"I  thought  you'd  like  it,  dear,"  he  whispered  fondly. 
"Isn't  it  beautiful!"  he  said  exultantly. 

On  the  hill  slope  where  the  great  yew  trees  grew  a 
monster  paper  dragon  sprawled  radiantly,  its  mouth 
yapping  one  trunk,  its  tail  strangling  another.  Ch'eng 
Tzu  saw  it,  and  shrank  back  a  little  against  the  wall. 

Ashford  did  not  see  her  close  her  eyes.  She  was 
shutting  out  the  sight — the  sight  of  this  costly,  tawdry 
display  that  he  had  planned  and  had  made  for  her. 
She  was  watching  another  carnival  of  light — the  Feast 
of  Lanterns  as  she  had  watched  it  last  in  Ho-nan,  her 
childish  hand  in  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin's.  And  she  felt  the 
hand  of  China  clutching  at  her  heart — and  the  Chinese 
blood  surged  madly  through  her  veins. 

"Look,  dear,"  he  said  as  a  pagoda  suddenly  flashed 
out  on  the  tennis  court.  Then  a  bridge — twisted,  camel- 
backed — spanned  the  dahlia  bed. 

And  Tzu  looked,  and  understood,  and  slipped  her 
hand  again  in  his,  and  smiled  up  at  him.  "Thank 
you.  Jack,"  she  told  him  softly,  "you  are  very,  very 
good  to  me." 

And  when  the  others  came  out,  she  still  left  her 
hand  in  his,  and  let  him  keep  his  arm  about  her 
shoulder. 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         275 

And  when  they  "oh'd,"  and  "ah'd,"  and  "my^d," 
and  "dear  me'ed"  and  the  women  screamed  a  little 
with  delight,  she  joined  softly  in  their  praise,  and  was 
very  gracious. 

They  scattered  presently,  running  here  and  there  to 
exclaim  again  at  this,  cry  out  at  that ;  and  Ch'eng  Tzu 
let  Lord  Ashford  lead  her  down  the  steps,  and  about 
the  grounds. 

Looking  up  at  the  Manor  house,  they  some  distance 
from  it  now,  she  saw  flying  from  the  old  round  tower, 
where  she  knew  his  race's  pennant  had  flown  in  Cceur 
de  Lion's  day,  a  Chinese  flag  fashioned  of  paper  lan- 
terns. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  caught  her  lip  beneath  her  teeth, 
and  her  face  was  pinched  and  gray. 

Jack  Selwyn  was  happier  than  a  schoolboy,  and 
prouder  even  than  kings  are  said  to  be. 

Lord  Ashford' s  pretty  Chinese  fiancee  was  the  gay- 
est— though  not  the  noisiest — of  all  the  gay  gathering 
in  the  drawing-rooms.  The  sweetness  of  her  smile, 
the  sweetness  of  her  voice  were  irresistible.  The 
Duchess  was  pleased.  Lady  Mary  was  proud  of  Ch'eng 
Tzu.  Captain  Granville  determined  that  it  was  all 
right,  after  all.  And  several  women  liked  Miss  Ch'eng 
who  had  not  liked  her  before. 

There  was  dancing,  after  supper,  in  the  great  white 
ballroom  with  its  thousand  candles,  its  ropes  of  roses, 
and  a  string-band  in  a  gilded  balcony. 

Jack  put  his  arm  about  her.  "With  meT  he  whis- 
pered— and  Tzu  kept  step  with  him.  It  was  a  waltz 
they  played — the  musicians  up  in  the  open,  begilded 
balcony — a  slow  waltz  tune,  a  tender  throbbing  thing, 
more  like  a  passionate  love-song  than  a  dance. 


276        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

From  her  mullioned,  ivied  window  Ch'eng  Tzu 
watched  the  moon  go,  and  the  sunrise  come. 

"It's  colder,  very  much  colder,"  Ashford  told  her. 
"I've  put  fur  rugs  in  your  car." 

Tzu  was  cloaked  and  hatted.  Her  gloves  were  on 
a  chair.  Lord  Ashford  would  take  her  to  the  waiting 
motor-car,  of  course, — and  stand  and  watch  her  go. 
Mrs.  Marston  was  already  in  the  car.  Ashford  had 
drawn  Tzu  here — to  say  "good-by"  more  privately. 

"Our  last  good-by,"  he  whispered,  "until "  his 

voice  choked  a  little. 

"Our  last  good-by,"  Ch'eng  Tzu  said.  Her  voice  was 
like  a  silver  bell.     Her  eyes  were  very  tender. 

At  the  library  door  she  turned  and  pushed  back  a 
little  into  the  room. 

"Jack!"  she  said.  She  took  his  face  in  her  little 
hands,  smiled  again  into  his  eyes,  and  kissed  him  lin- 
geringly. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  had  kissed  him  on  his  lips. 

John  Selwyn  trembled — and  his  eyes  flashed  his 
gratitude.    He  could  not  speak  to  her. 

Only  the  flowers  in  the  garden  knew  how  often 
he  had  kissed  Ch'eng  Tzu — on  face,  on  hands,  on  hair, 
or  sweet,  curved  crimson  lips,  and  only  a  man's  heart 
and  a  girl's  knew  how  tenderly.  But  Ch'eng  Tzu  had 
never  kissed  him  before.  And  she  had  kissed  him  on 
his  hps. 

He  trembled,  and  he  could  not  speak  to  her. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  had  given  him  her  first  kiss.  She 
had  suffered  kisses,  plump,  impersonal  baby  kisses  from 
the  twins.  She  had  felt  his  kisses,  and  had  not  shrunk ; 
after  the  first  she  had  not  felt  them  strange.  A  race- 
prejudice,  a  natural  abstinence  founded  in  a  people's 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         277 

innate  taste  had  kept  her  from  returning  the  English 
baby  kisses  she  had  endured,  or  at  the  best  accepted, 
but  never  welcomed — it  had  not  kept  her  from  a  pleased 
acceptance  of  the  lip  caresses  of  the  Englishman  she 
loved.    But  Ch'eng  Tzu  had  never  kissed  before. 

If  the  Chinese  lose  much  in  missing  one  of  Love's 
intimate,  tender  communions,  possibly  they  gain  even 
more  in  escaping  the  degradation  and  the  cheapness  of 
the  indiscriminate,  casual,  meaningless — or  worse — 
kissing  that  is  a  crime  and  an  ill-taste  of  races  v/hiter 
skinned — and  whiter  of  blood. 

That  first  kiss  said  more  than  the  man  who  trem- 
bled at  it  could  ever  know.  Mothers  sometimes  kiss 
sons  so,  whom  they  send  for  the  first  time  forth  to 
battle. 


CHAPTER  XL 

I^ROM  the  sea — past  the  hop  fields  of  Kent,  on  into 
-■■  Surrey,  up  towards  London,  the  luxurious  motor 
sped — Tzu  under  the  fur  Lord  Ash  ford  had  wrapped 
carefully  about  her,  huddled  back  against  her  cushions, 
gray- faced,  drawn  lipped.  Neither  woman  spoke.  Mrs. 
Marston  looked  at  the  girl  shocked  and  amazed.  How 
terribly  ill  she  looked.  What  was  it?  No  quarrel 
with  Lord  Ashford — not  even  a  misunderstanding. 
The  look  he  had  given  Tzu  as  he  heaped  the  rug  about 
her  had  been  unmistakable,  and  she  had  seen  the  girl's 
eyes  drink  it  in  almost  greedily.  What  on  earth  had 
happened — and  in  an  instant?  Tzu  had  been  all  right 
as  the  motor  moved.  Before  it  reached  the  lodge  her 
face  had  looked  like  death — or  worse — and  aged  in- 
credibly. Miss  Ch'eng  must  be  terribly  ill — some  des- 
perate seizure.  Well — they  were  rushing  to  London, 
and  to  home — and  home  and  bed  were  the  only  place 
for  any  one  who  looked  as  ill  as  this.  Poor  thing! 
How  terrifying — and  the  wedding  day  but  two  weeks 
off!  Mrs.  Marston  was  experienced,  and  she  was  sen- 
sible. She  pushed  a  cushion  a  little  more  comfortably 
behind  Miss  Ch'eng's  head,  lowered  a  window — and 
waited  quietly.  To  her  surprise  the  girl  walked  beside 
her  steadily  when  the  car  stopped  at  the  door  in  Curzon 
Street  and  went  upstairs  naturally.  And  at  lunch  she 
seemed  so  much  herself  that  the  older  woman  thought 
with  relief  that  the  seizure  had  passed.  But  she  was 
anxious.  Ought  she  to  write  to  Lord  Ashford?  She 
had  been  his  mother's  closest  friend.     But  she  knew 

578 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         279 

how  Miss  Ch^eng  would  resent  such  a  liberty.     She 
would  wait  till  morning. 

And  in  the  morning  she  wondered  if  by  any  possi- 
bility she  could  have  been  mistaken,  deceived  by  some 
trick  of  the  frosting  October  air.  Ah!  perhaps  that 
was  it!  The  change  of  temperature  had  been  ap- 
palling. It  had  chilled  her  to  the  bone — and  made 
her  almost  nervy.  And  Ch'eng  Tzii  had  never  liked 
the  cold. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  went  from  breakfast  back  to  her  own 
room  and  rang  for  Mung  Panii. 

"Come  here,"  she  told  her.  "Come  close.  We  go 
home  at  once — to  Ho-nan — just  you  and  I.  No  one 
must  know.  We  go  to-night.  Pack  nothing  of  my 
English  things.  I  forget  England  when  I  reach  our 
boat.    You  understand?" 

"My  honorable  mistress,"  Mung  Panii  spoke  in  Chi- 
nese, as  Tzu  had  done,  they  always  spoke  to  each  other 
so.  "Thy  worm  understands."  And  she  tried  to  keep 
from  her  voice  the  joy  racing  through  her  veins.  She 
regretted  that  she  need  not  kill  the  English  lord.  She 
was  glad  she  need  not  commit  suicide.  But  all  else 
was  nothing  to  the  thought  of  going  home — to  see 
her  people,  to  live  again  a  normal  life,  to  live  decently, 
eat  decently,  be  decent  again,  with  decent  people  in  a 
decent  place, — to  see  the  buffaloes  pulling  the  water- 
wheels,  to  crack  the  melon  seeds  between  her  teeth, 
to  sit  and  gossip,  in  the  women's  courtyard,  to  hope 
again  for  marriage — Ch'eng  Yiin  had  promised  it  on 
their  return,  marriage  well-dowered,  a  first  wife's  place 
in  some  v/ell-reputed  farmer's  house,  or  a  merchant's. 
Oh!  she  would  pack!  And  she'd  be  swift  and  secret. 
No  need  to  caution  her — Mung  Panii  bent  down  and 
laid  her  forehead  on  Ch'eng  Tzu's  shoe. 


28o        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

A  lawyer  for  whom  Miss  Ch*eng  had  sent — she  had 
written  notes  busily  the  night  before — was  closeted 
with  her  for  an  hour — inscrutable  when  he  came,  in- 
scrutable, unperturbed  still,  but  greatly  puzzled  when 
he  went. 

And  after  lunch  Tom  Granville  came. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  saw  him  in  the  Chinese  room  in  which 
Ma  Yuan's  herons  hung. 

"I  am  going  home  to  China,"  she  told  him  almost 
without  prefix.  ''And  I  have  sent  for  you — because 
I  trust  you." 

"Jack "  he  began. 

"You  will  tell  him  for  me" — Ch'eng  Tzu's  lip  trem- 
bled a  little — "after  I  have  sailed.  I  cannot  write  tc 
Lx)rd  Ash  ford,  Captain  Granville.  I  cannot  see  him 
again.  I  cannot  tell  him  good-by.  I  told  him  good-by 
yesterday,  in  the  library  at  the  Manor,"  she  added 
with  a  quivering  smile — all  the  Chinese  immobility 
torn  from  her  face  by  the  pain  that  clutched  her 
heart. 

"But— does  Jack  know?" 

Ch'eng  Tzu  shook  her  head — sadly.  "Nothing.  Bui 
I  knew — I  knew  that  I  was — telling — ^him  good-by.  1 
knew — when  I  saw  the  Chinese  lanterns  illuminating 
all  the  house  and  place." 

Tom  Granville  stared  his  amazement — ^too  dumb- 
founded to  speak,  too  puzzled  to  say,  "Why?" 

But  Ch'eng  Tzu  told  him. 

"But  they  were  not  Chinese  lanterns,"  the  girl  said 
passionately.  "You  might  hunt  the  bazaars  of  Ho- 
nan  for  such  lanterns !  Perhaps  coolies  may  hang  such 
at  their  marriage  festivals — or  some  strolling  players 
at  a  village  theatrical — I  cannot  say.  But  the  dragon 
— the  dragon  was  a  worm.    It  was  a  travesty  of  China 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        281 

— a.  mockery — almost  an  insult  to  the  most  sacred 
festival  of  China.  And  he  had  done  it  for  me!'*  A 
sob  escaped  her — but  she  choked  its  fellows  back.  "And 
just  such  travesty/'  Ch'eng  Tzu  continued  sternly,  "our 
life  together  would  be,  a  disappointment,  racial  insult, 
and  clash — ^where  only  love  was  meant.  There  can  be 
no  marriage  between  East  and  West — I  know  that 
now.'* 

"He  loves  you  dearly,"  Granville  said. 

"And  I,"  Ch'eng  Tzu  said,  "love  more."  She  turned 
away — towards  the  window. 

Granville  waited. 

*Ah,  well !  we  both  are  brave.  It  will  pass.  And — 
in  the  meantime — the  gods  help  us  both — his  God  him, 
and  my  gods  me !" 

"But  the  fifteenth " 

"Our  wedding  day!  I  shall  be  at  sea.  And  you 
must  be  with  him." 

"I  don't  think  Jack  will  get  over  it,"  the  Guardsman 
told  her. 

Tzu  smiled  sadly.  "Oh — yes.  He  is  a  man.  He 
will  care — again.     I  shall  not." 

"Are  you  sure  that  you  are  doing  right?" 

Ch'eng  Tzu  drew  a  stool,  and  sat  down  near  Gran- 
ville, and  faced  him,  her  hands  knotted  on  her  knee 
— her  right  hand  almost  lamed  with  its  weight  of 
rings,  John  Selwyn's  ring  alone  on  her  other  hand. 
"Quite  sure.  I  wish  that  I  could  doubt — if  only  for 
an  hour.  I  would  give  my  soul  to  be  back  where  I 
was  two  days  ago.  But  I  understand  now.  Then 
I  only  felt.  I  must  keep  faith  with  my  blood.  And 
I  must  keep  faith  with — Jack " 

"But,  I  say!     This  will  be  a  nasty  jolt  for  him!" 

Tzu  smiled,  and  the  Englishman  turned  his  eyes 


282        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

from  the  sorrow  on  her  face.  "It  will  hurt,  I  know. 
Ask  his  forgiveness  of  that,  for  me.  It  is  a  kindness 
that  I  do  him.  Captain  Granville.  If  I  did  not  know 
that,  I  could  not  have  the  strength.  I  cannot  tell  you 
what  my  revulsion  was,  or  the  hideous  sickness  of  it, 
when  I  saw  that  English  garden  hung  with  those  lan- 
terns. I  cannot  explain.  Only  a  Chinese  could  un- 
derstand. It  took  me  home,  as  surely  as  the  P.  and  O. 
will  do." 

"But — think  how  it  will  hurt  Jack,"  the  man  pleaded, 
— "and  the  shame  of  it — all  the  talk — and  all  that.  Is 
there  no  other  way?" 

"No  other  way,"  Tzu  said ;  "there  never  is  but  one 
right  way — and  usually,"  she  added  with  a  sigh,  "it  is 
the  hardest  way  of  all." 

"But  I  must  find  Jack,"  Granville  said  desperately. 
"He  must  have  his  chance.  He  would  never  forgive 
me,  if  I  let  you  get  away  without  seeing  him — and,  if 
you  do,  he'll  be  after  you  on  the  next  boat." 

"You  forget.  He  went  to  Paris  last  night.  No 
one  has  his  address  there  but  I.  I  shall  be  gone  before 
you  can  find  him."  Granville  groaned.  "I  have  for- 
gotten nothing,  I  think.  Captain  Granville.  I  have 
sent  Mrs.  Marston  for  a  week-end  with  her  sister.  I 
have  given  my  English  maid  a  holiday.  My  lawyer 
has  been  here.  He  will  close  this  house — and  all  those 
chings " 

"He  will  follow  you,"  Granville  said  doggedly. 

"Not  when  you  tell  him  what  I  ask.  You  must  not 
let  him  follow  me.  Captain  Granville — and  it  would  be 
of  no  use.     I  shall  not  waver." 

"By  Jove,"  he  began  bitterly,  "you  are  asking " 

he  halted. 

"A  great  deal  of  you — a  hard  thing.    I  know.    But 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         285 

you  will  do  it — for  Jack.  It  will  hurt  him  least  from 
you.  Tell  him  what  you  like — as  much  or  as  little  as 
you  like — just  what  you  think  will  hurt  him  least. 
Cure  him  quickly,  if  you  can.  Say  anything  of  me 
or  from  me.    Help  Jack !    That  is  why  I  sent  for  you." 

"And  you,  Miss  Ch'eng?" 

"Thank  you,'*  she  said — and  for  a  moment  her  eyes 
brimmed.  "I  go  back  to  China — to  do  my  work.  I 
do  not  know  what  it  is.  But  I  know  that  it  is  there — 
something  my  great-grandmother  destined  me  for. 
And  every  true  Chinese  is  needed  at  home  now.  I 
have  forgotten  China!  But  it  has  called  me  back. 
These  last  few  weeks  Fve  scarcely  known  what  was 
happening  there.  Even  the  throne  may  be  in  peril — 
from  what  the  papers  say." 

"And  if  it  is — ^what  can  you  do?    A  girl " 

"I  am  Chinese.  At  least  I  can  wait  and  watch — ^keep 
one  homestead  in  China  loyal — and  Chinese.  It  is  not* 
European  armies — or  even  European  statescraft — that 
I  fear  for  my  country,  but  the  increeping  of  European 
thought  and  ways."  She  laid  her  left  hand  on  her 
breast,  and  looked  down  at  it.  "I  shall  not  send  back 
his  ring,"  she  said,  "or  anything  that  he  has  given 
me.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  a  nice  thing  to  do.  He 
will  understand.  And — I  want  to  keep  my  ring — ^and 
to  keep  it  will  hurt  no  one — but  me — yet.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  I  must  put  it  away.  But — I  wish  I  might 
give  you  this — but  he  would  know  it — and  remember. 
We  want  him  to  forget."  She  pointed  to  the  Herons. 
Captain  Granville  mumbled  an  attempted  thanks,  and 
said  that  he  was  just  as  much  obliged — which  he  was. 
He  thought  Ma  Yuan's  herons  "rummy  birds." 

"Good-by."    Ch'eng  Tzu  held  out  her  hand. 

And  Granville  left  her. 


^84        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

He  felt  deuced  queer.  He  had  always  liked  her. 
And  he  foresaw  high- jinks  before  him — with  Jack. 
But  in  his  honest  English  soul  he  was  sturdily  sure 
that  Ch'eng  Tzu  was  right.  And  his  English  spirit 
liked  her  Chinese  pluck. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

TT  was  the  only  "good-by"  Ch'eng  Tzu  said  in  Eng« 
^  land. 

At  night  time,  in  rain  and  cold,  they  went  silently 
from  the  house,  and  slipped  away  in  the  dark. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  did  not  speak  once  to  Mung  Panii  in; 
the  motor. 

In  wind  and  rain,  in  sleet  and  angry  hissing  storm, 
the  car  sped  on  to  the  seaport  town.  But  the  angry 
storm  was  nothing  to  Ch'eng  Tzu.  Her  heart  was 
keeping  tryst  in  an  English  garden,  with  red  roses  at 
her  feet,  and  a  man's  hand  on  hers. 

And  it  was  less  than  nothing  to  Mung  Panii — Mung 
Panii  was  gossiping  in  a  courtyard,  cracking  melon- 
seeds  between  her  sturdy  little  white  teeth,  giggling 
while  the  women  hung  a  red  veil  about  her  painted 
face— waiting  for  the  flowery  bridal-chair  to  come. 

They  went  from  the  motor  to  their  cabin.  Tzu 
sat  silently  and  immovable  on  the  couch.  Panii  huddled 
on  the  floor  at  her  lady's  feet.     Neither  spoke. 

And  when — at  last — the  great  boat  moved,  neither 
made  a  sign,  or  showed  to  know  it. 

Tzu  would  not  look  again  at  England.  But  she 
knew  that  her  struggle  had  but  begun — and  that  she 
must  fight  her  lonely  fight  for  years — perhaps  forever. 
She  had  as  little  illusion  concerning  the  hardness  and 
the  pain  and  of  the  struggle  before  her  as  she  had  of 
its  wisdom  and  its  justice.  Ch'eng  Tzii  was  in  tor- 
ture. And  her  heart  cried  out  for  England — where  she 
had  known  her  red-rose  hour  of  love. 

2^5 


286        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

She  was  going  back  to  China. 

But  she  had  left  her  man  behind  her. 

Mung  Panii  dug  her  nails  into  her  flesh  when  the 
vessel  moved,  that  she  might  not  cry  out  with  the 
ecstasy  that  throbbed  in  her  at  the  first  throb  of  the 
engines.  She  was  going  back  to  China — where  pork 
was  fit  to  eat,  where  the  poorest  coolie  woman  could 
make  a  curry  and  dress  a  salad,  where  man  respected 
woman,  and  the  sun  knew  how  to  shine,  flowers  how 
to  grow,  fruits  how  to  ripen.  She  was  going  back 
to  gossip  in  the  courtyard — she  was  going  back  to 
home. 

From  Southampton  to  Hong  Kong  the  two  Chinese 
girls  scarcely  spoke,  and  Ch'eng  Tzu  never  left  the 
cabin. 

She  was  veiled  when  they  landed. 

They  stayed  a  week  in  Hong  Kong.  And  Hong 
jvong  did  Ch'eng  Tzu  good — because  it  angered  her, 
and  the  anger  braced  her. 

China's  tragedy  had  fallen.  The  Manchu  had  been 
dragged  and  beaten  from  his  throne.  A  republic  had 
been  proclaimed!  The  very  cooHes  at  their  barrows 
looked  to  her  like  cockneys;  and  some  of  them  were 
dressed  so — Chinese  merchants  were  dressed  like  Brix- 
ton bank  clerks  or  house-agents  at  Hanwell — and  Chi- 
nese gentlemen  wore  tweed  and  broadcloth  with  garde- 
nias in  their  button-holes. 

They  carried  her  across  China  in  her  palanquin. 
Much  of  the  journey  the  railways  could  have  speeded. 
But  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  would  have  none  of  them.  She 
traveled  as  the  Ch'eng  women  had  traveled  for  two 
thousand  years.  And  her  nostrils  quivered  to  the  smell 
of  Chinese  flowers.    Her  face  flamed  back  at  it  whe» 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        287 

she  saw  the  brilliant  fire-weed  flaming  on  the  gorges. 
She  saw  flowers  she  had  never  seen  before,  and  she 
recognized  and  hailed  them.  Why  not?  They  had 
bloomed  for  her  blood  for  untold  centuries. 

She  was  heavily  veiled  when  they  carried  her 
through  the  South  Gate. 

The  cymbals  clashed — a  temple  bell  was  tinkling 
from  the  rhythm  of  its  mallet  in  the  distance.  A 
wild  duck  screamed  above  a  sycamore  tree.  And  her 
people  crowded  by  the  path-side,  prostrating  themselves 
before  her  litter.     The  Ch'eng  had  come  home. 

Ah  Song  rose  from  her  mat,  and  tottered  from 
the  courtyard,  and  held  out  her  withered  hands  in 
reverence  and  in  greeting.  And  the  retainers  called  it 
a  miracle — for  Ah  Song  had  not  left  her  mat  for  many 
moons. 

In  the  morning  when  she  walked  through  the  garden 
to  the  silkworm  house,  four-footed  creatures  came  and 
rubbed  against  her  sleeve,  and  clawed  her,  and  a  host 
of  silky  doggies  danced  and  yapped  about  her,  clamor- 
ing for  her  notice — gold  and  amber  coated  doggies  of 
the  stock  from  which  English  King  Charles*  spaniels 
had  been  bred — gold  and  amber  silk-haired  doggies,  de- 
scendants of  Ti-to-ti,  who  was  playing  pranks  on  high 
now,  while  his  venerable  bones  moldered  near  the  coflin 
of  his  mistress  in  the  graveyard  of  the  Ch'engs.  And 
the  little  yellow  children  ran  and  tumbled  to  her  skirts 
— and  the  larkspurs  nodded  to  her,  and  the  poppies, 
and  the  yellow  lilies  on  their  polished  stalks. 

She  gave  the  babies  sweetmeats,  and  she  gave  her 
gods  an  oath. 

And  as  soon  as  she  could  do  it  decently  she  gave 
Mung  Panii  a  loud  and  a  sumptuous  bridal  cavalcade : 
lor  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  promised  it,  and  Ch'eng 


288        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Tzu  longed  to  be  rid  of  the  girl  who  had  been  with 
her  in  England — the  girl  who  reminded  her  of  Eng- 
land. 

She  needed  no  reminding  of  England — with  its 
granges  and  its  gardens,  its  manors  and  its  roses,  and 
its  clean-limbed,  blue-eyed  men. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  knew  that  she  would  not  forget. 
And  often  in  the  twilight  she  wondered  how  long 
John  Selwyn  would  remember. 

For  Ch'eng  Tzu  knew  that  in  Asia  or  in  Europe  a 
man  rarely  remembers,  a  woman  never  forgets. 

And  she  was  glad  that  he  would  forget — for  she 
was  generous  and  big. 

A  Chinese  man  followed  Ch'eng  Tzii  from  England. 
But  when  the  elder  Wang  sent  the  matchmakers  to 
her,  she  sent  them  back  to  him  with  many  a  costly 
present  and  a  wealth  of  honied  words — and  a  message 
saying  that  her  honorable  great-grandmother  had  be- 
trothed her  long  ago.  She  did  not  know  that  this  was 
true,  though  Sheng  Liu — at  her  request  returning  soon 
to  her  service — could  have  told  her;  but  she  allowed 
herself  the  courteous  lie  because  it  was  a  kindness. 

Ch'eng  Tzu  did  not  purpose  to  keep  Sheng  near 
her  when  he  came — ^he  had  been  too  close  to  her  in 
England,  he  had  known  Lord  Ash  ford — but  to  charge 
him  with  watching  home  events  at  Pekin,  at  Hankow 
and  at  Shanghai,  and  to  have  his  advice  and  service 
near  at  hand,  should  she  need  them. 

Captain  Granville  had  said  truly  that  she  could  do 
nothing  to  stem  the  debacle  of  her  country.  But  she 
kept  her  Chinese  state  in  Ho-nan,  and  held  her  home 
a  stronghold,  nursing  there  a  tiny  mustard  seed  of 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         289 

loyalty  that  might  grow  some  day  into  yellow  verdure 
that  would  spread,  and  cover  all  the  festered  gashes  in 
the  China  that  she  loved. 

All  that  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  done  before  her, 
Ch'eng  Tzu  did — and  more. 

But  the  Chinese  girl  was  homesick  for  the  England 
she  had  left — with  a  sicker  aching  than  she  had  ever  felt 
in  Europe  for  the  courtyards  and  the  garden  of  her 
childhood.  It  was  here  in  China  that  she  learned  how 
much  she  had  liked  England.  And  every  day  she  had 
to  fight  her  heart. 

It  was  struggle,  struggle  all  the  way.  Often  her 
heart  grew  faint,  and  the  little  ring-heavy,  apricot- 
tinted  hands  grew  cold  and  listless.  But  her  will  never 
grew  faint ;  and  neither  heart  nor  will  failed  her. 

She  had  been  alone  in  England — until  a  man  had 
kissed  her.  She  was  alone  in  China  now — more  alone 
than  she  had  been  in  exile.  In  London  and  at  the 
Vicarage  she  had  warmed  herself  with  thinking  of  the 
going-home  to  come.  Now  she  knew  that  she  should 
never  go  back — to  England.  And  there  was  no  one 
to  whom  she  could  speak  of  her  trouble — or  hint.  But 
for  her,  the  courtyards  of  the  ladies  were  empty, 
never  clattering  softly  with  the  footfall  of  golden 
lilies,  never  ringing  with  the  laughing  of  the  children 
or  the  babies. 

Worst  of  all,  perhaps — she  did  not  always  feel  quite 
at  home  here.  Gardeners  transplant  seedlings  when 
the  young  roots — still  lightly  fixed  in  earth  and  flexible 
— feel  little  pain  from  the  fingers  that  uproot  them : 
or  the  gardener  waits  until  the  plant  has  reached  a 
sturdier  growth,  and  can  take  new  grip  with  seasoned 
strenuous  fibers  of  the  second  ground.  Ch^eng  Tzu 
had  been  transplanted  too  late  or  too  soon:  too  late 


290        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

to  take  honest  root  in  England,  too  soon  to  take — as 
Wang  No  had — none  there.  And  a  fiber  of  her  being 
still  bled  and  perished  for  the  homeland  of  the  Selwyns. 

Or  perhaps  even  worse  was  her  entire  lack  of  com- 
panionship with  any  of  her  own  caste.  But  she  found 
her  solace  and  her  strength,  as  the  Chinese  always  do, 
in  a  fellowship  with  nature.  Whatever  her  hand  found 
to  do,  she  did  with  her  might,  cherishing  her  heritage 
and  enriching  it — spreading,  slowly,  silently  the  subtle 
propaganda  of  her  hope  and  ambition  for  the  healing 
of  an  Empire.  But  she  made  playmates  of  the  daisies, 
and  took  counsel  of  the  clouds.  She  listened  to  the 
winds,  and  leaned  against  the  bamboo  and  the  oak- 
trees,  sitting — for  hours — silent,  a  communicant  with 
nature,  on  the  grassy  slope  where  the  spotted  tiger 
lilies  quivered  by  a  lazy,  lagging  river,  on  the  moss- 
worn  rocks  where  the  pink  arbutus  glistened  with  the 
spray  the  rushing,  tumbling  cascade  threw  it,  and  tht 
wild  white  roses  told  that  this  was  China,  and  per- 
fumed the  air  for  leagues. 

But.  if  she  took  communion  with  the  grasses  and 
the  stars,  Ch'eng  Tzu  neglected  no  material  interest 
of  her  little  kingdom. 

The  very  by-products  of  her  piggeries  had  her 
earnest  consideration  and  her  strict  supervision.  She 
watched  over  her  school,  her  granaries,  and  her  fac- 
tories. Her  tea-plants  knew  her.  She  bred  a  new  rose 
in  her  gardens,  and  a  new  dye  in  her  vats.  She  added 
the  juice  of  cherries  to  the  crushings  of  her  peaches 
and  her  apples,  making  a  sweetened  wine  that  sold  well 
in  Shanghai,  and  reminded  her  when  she  sipped  it 
of  the  tang  of  sherry  she'd  tasted  after  soup  in  London. 
She  gathered  fortune  from  her  soap  trees  and  silver 
from  her  bees.    She  watched  and  taught  the  girls  that 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        291 

sang  at  their  embroidery  frames  while  the  great  silk 
flowers  grew  from  their  needles.  Scarcely  a  day  but 
she  lingered  with  her  artists — the  ivory-carvers  and  the 
men  who  wrought  in  bronze,  those  who  mixed  the  lac- 
quer's sumptuous  colors,  and  those  who  spread  it, 
and  the  master-workers  who  inlaid  the  trays  and  boxes 
with  silver  and  with  gold,  and  those  who  inlaid  the 
great  lacquer  screens  with  mother-o'-pearl  and  lead, 
and  framed  them  with  carved  cut-out  lace  of  camphor- 
wood  and  sandalwood  and  jasper,  those  who  en- 
crusted ornaments  with  the  blue  Kingfisher  feathers, 
and  the  patient  workers  in  malachite  and  cornelian. 
She  directed  the  lantern-makers  and  the  lantern-paint- 
ers, painting  one  sometimes  herself.  To  the  silkworms' 
houses  she  went  oftenest,  lingering  longest,  watching 
and  directing  and  dreaming.  When  the  new  eggs  pulse 
out  from  the  mother-moth's  bursted  belly  she  flutters 
down  to  death.  In  that  myriad  child-birth  every 
mother  dies.  But  such  death  is  not  without  its  beauty. 
And  in  the  Hereafter  in  which  every  pulse  shall  be 
perpetuated,  every  atom  gathered  up  and  perfected 
perchance  those  mother-moths  will  find  a  longer  flight 
and  a  compensation.     Ch'eng  Tzu  believed  so. 

She  was  careful  of  her  women,  and  very  tender  to 
their  babies.  She  tended  the  sick,  and  gave  their 
milk-names  to  the  new-born.  And  all  her  people  feared 
and  loved  her.  And  the  little  gold  and  amber  pug- 
doggies  fawned  upon  her  shadow  when  they  saw  it. 

The  girl  fought.     And  she  took  counsel. 

Her  conscience  was  her  task-master,  but  her  con- 
science approved  her.  And  her  character — be- 
queathed her  by  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin — was  her  destiny. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

ON  her  mat  Ah  Song  lay  dying. 
In  a  last  obedience  to  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  she 
had  lived  on  these  few  years  longer  than  Ch'eng  Yiin. 
For  nine  years  were  but  few  in  the  long  tally  of  Song's 
days. 

Bom  a  Shao  slave,  gifted  from  the  cradle  with 
second-sight,  early  skilled  in  simples,  widowed  after  a 
few  moons  of  marriage,  her  son  had  been  born  a 
month  before  the  birth  of  Shao  Yiin,  and  had  died 
in  the  cottage  by  the  wayside  just  as  the  girl  was  born 
to  the  great  house.  Pitying  the  slave  so  doubly  be- 
reaved, knowing  hen  trustworthy  and  skilled,  Shao  had 
called  her  to  his  wife,  and  had  bidden  her  to  her  first 
attendance  on  their  new-born  daughter.  The  slave- 
woman  took  the  baby  in  her  arms,  and  the  child  took 
instant  root  in  the  torn  heart,  and  had  grown  there 
— with  a  hold  that  had  never  loosened.  Every  hour 
since  then  Song  had  been  in  attendance  on  her  lady 
Yiin.  She  was  in  attendance  on  her  now — husbanding 
her  last  breath  and  her  last  strength  to  obey  Shao 
Yun*s  last  command.  Life  had  ended  for  Ah  Song 
when  it  had  ended  f  oi  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin — but  duty  and 
obedience  had  remained.  And  she  had  breathed  on  to 
perform  them. 

The  blind  slave-woman  had  been  invaluable  to  her 
lady,  and  chiefly  had  been  so  through  two  assets  of 
personality — not  her  fidelity,  for  fidelity  is  a  com- 
monplace in  China,  a  matter-of-course,  to  be  had  on 

«)3 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        293 

every  hand — her  silence  and  her  second-sight.  Almost 
all  Chinese  have  psychic  gift,  and  they  have  it  in  a 
quality  above  all  other  peoples.  But  among  the  Chi- 
nese there  is  no  uniformity  of  psychic  gift — all  have 
it,  but  in  degrees  greatly  differing.  And  it  sinks  to  its 
lowest  degree,  and  is  smallest  in  quantity,  in  the  pro- 
fessional psychics — who,  in  China  as  elsewhere,  strain 
and  fray  it  thin,  and  often  to  nothingness.  Blind 
Ah  Song  was  psychic  far  beyond  the  average  of  her 
country's  genuine  and  unspoiled  psychics.  And  she 
had  never  overused,  or  overtold  her  gift.  It  came  to 
her,  she  never  sought  it.  And  even  of  normal,  every- 
day things  she  had  been  all  but  speechless — unique  in 
this  in  a  country  where  women  are  more  incessantly 
talkative  than  they  are  anywhere  else,  and  where  their 
license  of  speech  has  no  limit. 

Ah  Song  had  lost  her  physical  sight  in  the  service  of 
Shao  Yiin — in  Kwangtung  long  ago.  At  the  Feast  of 
Lanterns,  little  Yiin  had  run,  clapping  her  hands, 
towards  a  gilded  fish-shaped  lantern  that  had  caught 
fire,  as  the  pretty  painted  things  often  do,  and  always 
to  the  watching  crowd's  noisy  ecstasy.  A  flaming  frag- 
ment had  caught  her  scarf  and  flared  up  to  her  throat. 
But  Ah  Song  had  caught  the  child  in  her  arms,  and 
smothered  the  fire  against  her  own  breast,  beating  it 
out  with  her  own  face.  Yiin  had  taken  no  harm — 
beyond  the  ruin  of  a  little  festal  finery,  but  Ah  Song 
had  lost  her  sight. 

She  had  only  done  her  duty,  and  no  one  held  it 
more — she  herself  least  of  all.  But  even  so  it  had 
counted  for  another  link  between  slave  and  mistress, 
and  had  served  Ah  Song  for  many  a  privilege ;  for  no 
Chinese  is  ever  ungrateful.  Heaven  forbid  that  we 
should  praise  them  for  it     No  praise  is  due.     For 


294        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

it  is  merely  that  to  a  normal  Chinese  ingratitude  is  an 
impossibihty. 

Song's  sense  of  touch  had  been  increased  by  her  loss 
of  sight.  Everywhere  the  blind  see  through  their 
fingers.  She  could  embroider.  She  could  detect  the 
slightest  variation  of  shade  in  silks  or  tissues.  She 
could  card  silks  accurately,  and  even  pick  up  with 
the  needle's  eye  the  fine  end  in  the  broken  cocoon,  and 
wind  it  off  and  reel  it  with  a  hand  that  never  wavered 
or  mismoved ;  she  knew  a  change  of  temperature  before 
the  thermometers  could  record  it.  She  was  invaluable 
in  a  dozen  ways  in  the  worm-houses.  And  blind  Ah 
Song  almost  as  much  as  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  herself  had 
achieved  for  one  estate — in  a  province  of  inferior  and 
wild  silks — a  sericultural  preeminence  that  was  ac«» 
knowledged  in  the  fabric  markets  of  the  world. 

And  her  hearing  had  been  as  extraordinary  as  her 
touch. 

Ah  Song  lay  dying  on  her  mat,  and  Ch'eng  Tzu  sat 
on  the  floor  beside  her — and  held  her  hand. 

For  weeks  the  old  slave  had  not  spoken,  and  had 
scarcely  moved. 

Now  she  raised  herself  a  little,  and  turned  her  sight- 
less eyes  on  Tzii.  And  Ch'eng  Tzu  slipped  an  arm 
about  the  wasted  form,  and  listened  while  Ah  Song 
told  her — ^pausing  often  for  breath,  but  missing  noth- 
ing of  the  message  she  had  lingered  to  give — all  that 
Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  had  planned  and  hoped  in  sending 
Tzu  to  England. 

She  told  again  the  story — the  glorious  unbroken 
story  of  the  women  of  the  Ch'engs.  She  told  again 
the  old  tradition  that  when  China's  need  should  be 
sorest,  China's  fate  lowest,  a  Ch'eng  woman  should 
give  herself  and  all  her  days  to  China,  saving  her  coun- 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS         295 

try,  restoring  it  to  brighter,  firmer  greatness.  She 
told  how  Ch'eng  Yiin,  as  Ch'eng  Yiin's  father  before 
her,  had  sensed,  and  then  seen  clearly,  China's  peril 
from  foes  without  and  dolts  within,  and  seeing,  had 
set  herself  to  avert — and  when  that  failed  had  dedi- 
cated Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  to  restore. 

*'It  will  not  be  in  thy  time,  O  jade-like.  But  it  will 
come.  Nurse  the  pearl-like  seed  of  China's  sanity 
within  thy  breast — suckle  it  as  a  mother  a  babe.  This 
is  no  time  to  strike.  That  time  is  far.  But  keep  one 
bit  of  China  Chinese.  Let  no  alien  influence  creep 
within  our  gates  to  taint  and  poison.  Bar  socialism 
and  anarchy  out — with  thy  soul;  if  need  be,  with  thy 
body.  Love  is  the  greatest  force.  Love  China  well. 
Wealth  is  almost  an  omnipotence.  Thy  great  wealth 
can  buy  thee  undisturbed  seclusion  for  thy  people, 
and  the  privilege  to  govern  here  as  thou  likest.  Keep 
China  alive  in  thy  domain.  Keep  thy  courtyards  clean 
and  garnished  with  old  things.  Keep  the  home  life 
in  the  thousand  huts  true  and  sweet  with  old  ways. 
Let  thy  men  and  thy  women  and  all  the  little  children 
live  as  their  ancestors  lived.  Lean  on  our  sages.  Learn 
from  the  foaming  waters,  the  quivering  flowers,  the 
mantling  sky,  the  great  trees  and  the  whispering  breeze. 
Keep  the  Feast  of  Lanterns.  Keep  it  each  year  more 
sacredly:  it  is  the  very  soul  of  China — China  cannot 
perish  while  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  lives." 

She  rested. 

Then  Ah  Song  told  of  Ch'eng  Yiin's  death  (not 
calling  it  that),  details  that  Tzu  had  not  heard  before. 

Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  spent  a  busy  morning  with 
the  lacquer-workers,  and  in  the  silkworm  houses. 
Towards  sunset  she  had  gone  to  watch  her  reapers  at 
the  grain,  encouraging  and  admonishing  them — join- 


296        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

ing  in  their  labor  even — for  there  was  little  in  all 
the  vast  estate  that  she  could  not  do  better  than  her 
serfs.  She  had  sickened  there,  at  the  harvest,  among 
her  people — her  patient  people  who  feared  and  loved 
her.  She  had  cried  out  in  sudden  pain,  and  had  swayed 
a  little  on  her  feet.  And  they  had  run  to  catch  her, 
but  she  had  driven  them  back  with  an  old  imperious 
gesture.  And  even  in  her  dying  they  had  not  dared 
to  disobey  her.  A  little  longer  she  had  stood  so,  lean- 
ing on  her  ivory  staff — Ti-to-ti  whimpering  at  her 
feet.  Then  she  had  spoken  some  last  direction  to  the 
reapers,  a  message  to  the  charcoal-burners.  And  her 
last  speaking  had  been  of  Ch'eng  Tzu  and  of  China — 
while  pain  had  twisted  her  face,  her  voice  sweet  and 
clear  even  while  death  choked  it.  Then  a  great  joy 
had  lit  Ch'eng  Yiin's  face,  her  stick  had  fallen  at  her 
feet,  and  she  had  stretched  out  her  arms  towards  the 
sunset,  and  had  cried  out,  "My  Lord !"  and  had  fallen 
among  her  golden  grain.  They  had  carried  her  across 
the  acres  she  had  ruled,  through  the  gardens  she  had 
loved,  across  the  courtyard  that  had  been  hers  since 
a  bride,  through  the  chamber  in  which  she  had  borne 
her  children,  and  had  laid  her  on  the  dais  in  the  Ko- 
tang.  And  at  midnight,  Ti-to-ti  had  gone  to  her  on 
high,  and  they  had  coffined  him  at  her  feet,  and  not  in 
the  dog's  cemetery,  feeling  that  his  heart-break  de- 
served it,  and  that  their  lady  would  so  have  commanded 
them. 

Again  Ah  Song  rested. 

Then  she  spoke  again. 

"Wait.  Watch.  Work.  And  always  watch.  The 
time  will  come.  China  cannot  perish.  Thy  slave's 
toothless  gums  have  sucked  the  honey  of  China's  sacred 
breath,  since  great  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin's  most  honorable 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        297 

father  was  a  toddling  boy,  and  I  can  taste  it  in  my 
hour  of  glad  departure.  China  is  immortal,  lady.  Im- 
mortal bees  gods-sent  stored  that  imperial  honey  fron^ 
the  flowers  of  heaven.  Store  it  here.  Keep  it  alive, 
and  unpolluted,  here  in  thy  home — the  bridal  home  of 
celestial  Shao  Yiin." 

The  slight  form  was  growing  a  little  heavy  in  the 
girlish  arms  that  held  it. 

Tzu  thought  Song  dozed.  She  laid  her  face  against 
her  slave's.  Ah  Song  smiled,  and  made  a  sign  of 
obeisance  with  one  feeble,  claw-like  hand. 

Then — it  was  the  last — she  told  of  what  Ch^eng 
Shao  Yiin  had  sacrificed;  Chii-po,  Lo  Yuet,  and  then 
the  companionship  of  Tzu, — Tzu,  the  girl-child  so- 
waited-for,  so-despaired-of,  so  riotously  welcomed,  so 
passionately  loved,  so  tended,  so  yearned  over,  and 
missed  in  such  long  torture  when  Sheng  Liu  had  taken 
the  child  to  England,  leaving  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  bereft 
— alone  in  China,  grieving  but  invincible.  With  labor- 
ing, straining  breath  dying  Song  spoke  of  the  marriage 
Ch'eng  Yiin  had  planned  for  Tzu — that  Tzu  might 
remain  a  Ch'eng,  be  the  mother  of  Ch'engs,  and  live 
and  rule  while  she  lived,  here  in  her  ancestral  home. 

With  a  convulsive  spasm  of  her  spent  strength,  Ah 
Song  raised  herself  again  a  little  on  her  lady's  arms, 
and,  with  again  the  gesture  of  obeisance,  laid  her  hand 
on  her  lady's  sleeve. 

Death  rattled  in  Ah  Song's  stiffening  throat. 

Ah  Song  had  gone,  to  be  again  in  attendance  on 
Shao  Yiin. 

Ch'eng  Tzii  took  no  counsel  of  the  necromancer  as 
to  where  or  how  the  body  of  the  blind  woman  should 
be  laid. 


298        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

They  carried  Ah  Song — to  dash  of  cymbals,  beat  of 
drum — incense  drenching  her  costly  coffin — through  the 
avenue  of  stone  figures  that  denoted  the  approach  to 
the  tombs  of  nobles — noble  figures,  beautiful  in  exe- 
cution and  significant  in  subjects — ^mandarins,  minis- 
ters of  state,  sages,  priests,  tigers  and  warriors,  camels, 
and  elephants,  dragons  and  sheep,  horses,  dogs,  birds 
and  troubadours,  colossal  in  size,  standing  on  slabs  of 
onyx,  bronze  and  porphyry — to  the  family  burial 
ground  inside  its  guarding  belt  of  great  cypress  trees, 
and  laid  it  beside  the  tiny  tomb  of  Ti-to-ti  at  the  feet 
of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzii  walked  behind  the  coffin  of  the 
slave. 

And  on  the  temple  wall  Tzu  put  a  tablet  marked, 
*"Ah  Song,  the  Slave  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yim." 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

AND  when  the  Feast  of  Lanterns  had  passed  Ch*eng 
Tzu  sent  the  matchmakers  to  Ch'eng  Wen.  And 
she  sent  Sheng  Liu  with  them,  and  charged  him  to  tell 
Wen  all  he  knew  of  her  stay  in  England — and  to  re- 
mind Ch'eng  Wen  that,  even  if  he  did  not  wed  her,  by 
the  will  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun — as  it  now  proved — Yiin's 
adopted  son  would  have  great  wealth,  and  that,  while 
Ch'eng  Yun's  wish  for  their  marriage  was  clearly  in- 
dicated, she  had  not  enforced  it  by  formal  betrothal; 
they  both  were  free. 

Wen  did  not  like  what  Sheng  told  him  of  Ch'eng 
Tzii's  engagement  to  an  Englishman.  But  he  had  no 
idea  of  the  detail  of  actual  acquaintance  customary 
between  fiances  in  England,  and  Sheng  Liu  felt  no 
need  to  explain  it.  Even  so  Wen  winced,  but  he  put 
it  from  him — and  sent  the  matchmakers  back  to  Ch'eng 
Fzu  with  his  troth  and  a  long  length  of  gifts. 

But  the  actual  marriage  took  long  to  do.  Tzu  had 
kept  her  year  of  mourning  for  Ch'eng  Yiin,  as  best 
she  could,  in  England.  But  she  kept  it  here  again  in 
China,  and  with  a  fuller  punctilio.  And  before  she 
could  wed  with  Ch'eng  Wen,  by  adoption  now  her 
kinsman,  it  was  obligatory  that  she  herself  should 
cease  to  be  a  Ch'eng.  To  become  in  marriage  a  Ch'eng 
she  must  cease  to  be  a  Ch'eng  maiden.  A  Chinese 
must  not  marry  one  of  his  own  family  name.  It  is  a 
law  sometimes  evaded — but  not  by  such  loyalists  as 
she.    The  new  republican  dispensation  had  cast  the  old 

200 


300        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

law  aside  perhaps.  But  as  to  that,  she  neither  knew 
nor  cared.  She  gave  neither  courtesy  nor  heed  to  the 
aew  edicts — scorning  even  to  know  them.  For  her 
every  old  law  was  more  stringent  and  more  sacred 
than  it  had  been — and  she  would  fulfill  and  obey  it  to 
the  last  article. 

She  gave  herself  in  adoption  to  Sheng  Liu — who, 
though  neither  rich  nor  powerful,  belonged  to  a  fam- 
ily as  noble  as  her  own.  And  the  ratification  of  the 
adoption,  and  all  its  forms  took  time. 

But  at  last  the  marriage  was  accomplished. 

When  Ch'eng  Tzu  found  that  Wen  her  husband 
Toved  her,  he  did  not  find  it  hard,  she  took  up  that 
added  cross,  and  bore  it  meekly.  Presently  she  came 
to  bear  it  gayly.  His  companionship  was  pleasant. 
And  their  children  brought  her  content. 

Presidents  came  and  went  in  China,  but  in  Ho-nan, 
Ch'eng  Tzu  watched,  waited  and  worked.  And  in  her 
domain  the  Manchu  still  reigned. 

She  served  her  lord  meekly,  but  she  ruled  him. 
Sheng  Liu  knew  that  the  new  movement  might  have 
lured  Ch'eng  Wen  had  not  his  wife  so  held  him  in  her 
keeping.  But  Wen  knew  no  will  but  Tzu.  He  or- 
dered— under  her — the  tilling  of  her  fields,  he  lived  her 
life,  he  thought  her  thoughts,  and,  for  her  bearing  of 
his  children,  he  worshiped  her. 

And  she  knew  that  for  her  life  was  better  so.  But 
she  had  a  memory  in  her  heart — sometimes  a  hidden 
secret  sweetness,  sometimes  a  pain  that  rankled. 

She  sometimes  wondered  what  had  come  in  England 
— to  those  she  had  known.  But  she  was  loyal  to  her 
own  determination:  and  she  never  learned.     She  sent 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        301 

a  thought  to  old  friends  sometimes — but  she  never  sent 
a  message,  or  let  one  reach  her. 

But  within  her  gates  no  word  might  be  spoken  that 
disparaged  the  English  land  sheM  lived  in.  As  the 
years  passed  she  compared  the  two  countries  and  the 
two  people  shrewdly,  and  for  a  woman,  strangely  with- 
out prejudice.  And  each  day  she  grew  more  confirmed 
in  her  conviction  that  China  and  the  Chinese  excelled. 
But  she  saw  a  spiritual  kinship  in  them — the  Chinese 
and  English, — at  their  best  and  smiled  to  think  how 
droll  it  was  that  none  else  had  ever  seen  and  sensed 
that  kinship. 

She  lived  the  hfe  of  a  great  lady  of  the  old  feudal 
days.  No  I  Kung  Moy  ever  saw  her  face  unveiled. 
Only  Ch'eng  Wen  ever  saw  the  face  that  once  an  Eng- 
lishman had  kissed.  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  lived  more 
strictly  conventional  than  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  been. 

Sorrow  touched  her  sometimes.  But  she  was  not 
unhappy. 

She  lived  for  China's  regeneration.  She  believed  it. 
She  watched  for  it,  waited  for  it,  and  worked  for  it 
tirelessly.  And  Ch'eng  Wen  was  her  good  right- 
hand.  Every  hour  of  all  her  days  was  packed.  That 
was  part  of  her  unswerAdng  patriotism  of  which  her 
husband  was  but  an  appanage — dutifully  served,  scru- 
pulously, as  a  Chinese  wife  should  serve. 

Her  sorrow  for  her  country  dwarfed  her  sorrow  for 
herself.  But  even  in  her  country's  woe  and  peril,  its 
momentary  degradation,  she  saw  a  promise  and  a  hope. 
In  the  universal  dismay  and  resentment  at  the  alien 
encroachments — now  too  potent  to  4>e  overlooked  even 
by  the  common  people — she  saw  and  hoped  a  knitting 
up  of  the  scattered  loyalties  that  heretofore  had  made 


302        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

the  individual  Chinese  devoted  to  family,  clan  and  prov- 
ince more  than  conscious  of  national  needs  or  national 
duty.  She  knew  that  her  countrymen  were  fundament- 
ally pacific.  But  she  knew  how  they  could  fight — their 
history  told  it — that  patient,  plodding  people — and  she 
smiled  grimly,  quoting  to  herself  a  Christian  text  she'd 
learned  in  England,  "Beware  the  fury  of  a  patient 
man."  And  her  longing  burned  for  the  day  when 
China  should  turn  and  rend  the  intruders  from  without 
and  the  usurpers  from  within. 

Travel  is  the  test  of  patriotism — a  terrible,  acid  test 
sometimes.  But  Chinese  patriotism  is  justified  to  pass 
through  it  unaltered  and  enhanced.  Travel  and  for- 
eign sojourn  had  served  to  strengthen  and  quicken  the 
patriotism  of  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu.  She  gloated  over  her 
country.  She  yearned  over  her  people.  And  all  the 
old  Chinese  traditions  lived  and  glowed  in  her  heart. 
She  was  more  intensely  Chinese  for  the  years  that  she 
had  spent  in  England — ^more  uncompromisingly 
Chinese  than  Ch'eng  Shao  Yiin  had  been. 

When  Tzu's  little  daughter  was  three  and  a  moon, 
Tzu's  son  was  born.  And  when  she  snuggled  the  little 
downy  head  against  her  face,  she  thanked  Kwanyin 
Ko  that  she  need  never  apologize  to  her  son  for  having 
brought  him  into  life  disfigured  and  discounted  by 
mixed  race-blood.  She  knew  that  she  might  have 
loved  her  boyling  even  a  little  more  perhaps  if — but 
she  kept  the  thought  in  leash.  And  she  knew  too  that 
in  another  way  she  must  have  loved  her  son  a  little 
less  had  any  blood  of  Europe  flowed  in  his  veins,  must 
have  respected  him  less,  been  less  proud  of  him,  and 
been  less  glad  in  motherhood — less  rested — if 


THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS        303 

Ch'eng  T*ien  Tzu  sat  lazy  in  the  grass  beside  the 
quiet  river  where  Chii-po  had  sat  the  day  Ting  Lo 
brought  Ting  Tzii  ta  visit  Ch'eng  Ping-yang.  A 
single  narcissus  grew  beside  a  stone.  The  sun  was 
fading  to  the  twilight.  A  crane,  on  the  other  bank, 
was  drinking  peacefully,  throwing  the  woman  and  her 
babies  a  friendly  glance,  as  he  lifted  his  long  neck  to 
let  the  liquid  coolness  trickle  down  his  throat. 

Her  girl  was  playing  with  her  girdle.  Her  boy  was 
sleeping  in  her  arms.  Far  on  the  hoary  mountains  a 
bell  tinkled  from  the  striking  of  its  mallet.  Buddhist 
monks  were  trooping  in  to  prayer.  From  somewhere 
on  a  hillside — nearer,  clearer  a  gong  sounded :  in  a  con- 
vent on  the  hillside  Taoist  nuns  were  going  to  their 
rice.  The  gods  of  China  are  a  brotherly  crew,  and 
live  in  amity  on  high ;  and  creed  smiles  on  creed,  rarely 
clashing,  in  the  land  of  the  pagoda. 

Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu  often  came  here — and  here  no  one 
ever  sought  her.  That  was  a  law.  To-day  she  found 
it  very  good  to  rest  here,  and  watch  the  narcissus  petals 
grow  gold  then  pink  in  the  "good-by"  of  the  sun,  for 
Tzu  was  frankly  tired  to-day.  The  Feast  of  Lanterns 
was  at  hand,  and  from  dawn  she  had  been  toiling  with 
her  women,  giving  directions  to  her  men. 

The  little  girl — ''Flower  o'  Jade"  was  her  milk  name 
— was  very  quiet.  Across  the  river  a  bird  called  to 
his  mate. 

Tears  gathered  in  Ch'eng  T'ien  Tzu's  eyes.  The 
ripple  of  an  old  pain  and  an  old  parting  crumpled  her 
face.  She  laid  her  face  down  on  her  baby's,  hiding  it 
on  his.  "J^ck,'*  she  said  with  a  sob.  And  the  child 
woke,  and  the  little  Chinese  girl  wondered,  at  a  word 
they'd  never  heard  before. 


304        THE  FEAST  OF  LANTERNS 

Ch'eng  Tzu  rose  and  shook  out  her  wide  crumpled 
trousers,  and  moved  towards  the  house,  one  baby  cling- 
ing to  her  hand,  one  cuddled  at  her  neck ;  went  smiling, 
carrying  them  to  their  women,  went  in  tc  serve  her 
lord  meekly  at  his  rice. 

And  the  soul  of  Ch'eng  Shao  Yun  lived  and  ruled  ic 
the  homestead  of  her  clan. 


THE  END 


The  greatest  pleasure  in  life  is 
that  of  reading.  Why  not  then 
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Gun  Brand,  The.    James  B.  Hendryx. 

Gun  Runn«r,  The.    Arthur  Stringer. 

Guns  of  the  Gods.    Talbot  Mundy. 

Hand  of  Fu-Manchu,  The.    Sax  Rohmer. 

Hand  oi  Peril,  The.    Arthur  Stringer, 


THE   BEST   OF   RECENT   FICTION 

Harbor  Road,  The.    Sara  Ware  Bassett. 

Harriet  and  ihe  Piper.    Kathleen  Norris. 

Havoc     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Head  of  the   Houso  o£   Coombe,  The.      Frances    Hodgson 

Burnett. 
Heart  of  tbe  Desert,  The.     Honore  Willsie. 
Heart  of  the  Hills,  The.    John  Fox,  Jr. 
Heart  of  the  Range,  The.    William  Patterson  White. 
Heart  of  the  Sunset.    Rex  Beach. 
Heart  of  Unaga,  The.     Ridgwell  Cullum. 
Helen  of  the  Old  House.     Harold  Bell  Wright. 
Hidden  Places,  The.    Bertrand  W.  Sinclair. 
Hidden  Trails.    William  Patterson  White. 
Hillman,  The.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Hira  Singh.     Talbot  Mundy. 
His  Last  Bow.    A.  Conan  Doyle. 
His  Official  Fiancee.    Berta  Ruck. 
Homeland.     Margaret   Hill  McCarter. 
Homestead  Ranch.     Elizabeth  G.  Young. 
Honor  of  the  Big  Snows.    James  Oliver  Curwood. 
Hopalong  Cassidy.    Clarence  E.  Mulford. 
Hound  from  the  North,  The.    Ridgwell  Cullum. 
House  of  the  Whin)ering  Pines,  The.  Anna  Katharine  Green 
Humoresque,    (Fannie  Hurst. 
Dlustrious  Prince,  The.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
In  Another  Girrs  Shoes.    Berta  Ruck. 
Indifference  of  Juliet,  The.    Grace  S.  Richmond. 
Infdice.    Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 
Initials  Only.    Anna  Katharine  Green. 
Innocent.    Marie  Corelli. 

Innocent  Adventuress,  The.     Mary  Hastings  Bradley. 
Insidious  Dr.  Fu-Manchu,  The.     Sax  Rohmer. 
In  6ie  Brooding  Wild.    Ridgwell  Cullum. 
In  the  Onyx  Lobby.    Carolyn  Wells. 
Iron  Trail,  The.    Rex  Beach. 
Lron  Woman,  The.    Margaret  Beland. 
IshmaeL     (lU.)     Mrs.  Southworth. 
Isle  of  Retribution.     Edison  Marshall. 
I've  Married  Marjorie.    Margaret  Widdemer. 
Ivory  Trail,  The^    Talbot  Mundy. 
Jacob's  Ladder.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Jean  of  the  Lazy  A.    B.  M.  Bower. 
Jeanne  of  1^  Marshes.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Jefvcs.     P.  G.  Wodchouse. 


AT     A      POPUL'AR      PRICE 

Jimmie  Dale  and  the  Phantom  Clew.    Frank  L.  Packard. 

Jc^nny  Nelson.    Clarence  E.  Mulford. 

Joseph  Greer  and  His  Daughter.     Henry  Kitchell  Webster. 

Judith  of  the  Godless  Valley.  Honore  Willsie. 

Keeper  of  the  Door,  The.    Ethel  M.  Dell. 

Keith  of  the  Border.     Randall  Parrish. 

Kent  Knowles:  Quahaug.    Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Kilmeny  of  the  Orchard.     L.  M.  Montgomery. 

Kingdom  of  the  Blind,  The.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

King  of  Kearsarge.    Arthur  O.  Friel. 

King  of  the  Khyber  Rifles.    Talbot  Mundy. 

King  Spruce.    Holman  ©ay. 

Knave  of  Diamonds,  The.    Ethel  M.  Delf. 

Land-Girl's  Love  Story,  A.    Berta  Ruck. 

Land  of  Strong  Men,  The.    A.  M.  Chisholm. 

Laramie  Holds  the  Range.    Frank  H.  Spearman. 

Last  Trail,  The.    Z-^ne  Grey. 

Laughing  Bill  Hyde.    Rex  Beach. 

Laughing  Girl,  The.    Robert  W.  Chambers. 

Law  Breakers,,  The.    Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Law  of  the  Gun,  The.    Ridgwell  Cullum. 

Leavenworth  Case,  The.    Anna  Katherine  Green.  (Photoplay 

Edition). 
Light  That  Failed,  The.     Rudyard  Kipling.  (Photoplay  Ed.). 
Lighted  Way,  The.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Lin  McLean.     Owen  Wister. 
Lister's  Great  Adventure.    Harold  Bindloss. 
Little  Moment  of   Happiness,    Th*.      Clarence     Budington 

Kelland. 
Little  Red  Foot,  The.    Robert  W.  Chambers. 
Little  Warrior,  The.    Pelham  Grenville  Wodehouse. 
Lonely  Warrior,  The.    Claude  C.  Washburn. 
Lonesome  Land.    B.  M.  Bower. 
Lone  Wolf,  The.    Louis  Joseph  Vance. 
Long  Live  the  Ki*g.     Mary  Roberts  Rinehart.   (Photoplay 

Edition). 
Lost  Ambassador.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 
Lost  Discovery,  The.    Baillie  Reynolds. 
Lost  Prince,  The.    Frances  Hodgson  Burnett. 
Lost  Worid,  The.     A.  Conan  Boyle. 
Luck  of  the  Kid,  The.    Ridgwell  Cullum. 
Lucretia  Lombard,  Kathleen  Norris- 
Luminous  Face,  The.    Carolyn  Wells. 
Lydia  of  the  Pines.    Honore  Willsie. 


THE   BEST  OF   RECENT   FICTION 

Lynch  Lawyers.    William  Patterson  White. 

McCarty  Incog.    Isabel  Ostrander. 

Major,  The.     Ralph  Connor. 

Maker  of  History,  A.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Malefactor,  The.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Man  and  Maid.    Elinor  Glyn. 

Man  from  Bar  20,  The.    'Clarence  E.  Mulford. 

Man  from  the  Bitter  Roots,  The.    Caroline  Lockhart. 

Man  in  the  MoonUght,  The.    Rupert  S.  Holland. 

Man  in  the  Twilight,  The.     Ridgwell   Cullum. 

Man  Killers,  The.     Dane  Coolidge. 

Man  Who  Couldn't  Sleep,  The.    Arthur  Stringer. 

Man's  Country.     Peter  Clark  Macfarlane. 

Marqueray*s  Duel.     Anthony  Pryde. 

Martin  Conisby's  Vengeance.    Jeffery  FarnoL 

Mary-Gusta.    Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mary  Wollaston.     Henry  Kitchell  Webster. 

Mason  of  Bar  X  Ranch.    H.  Bennett. 

Masteir  of  Man.    Hall  Caine. 

Master  Mummer,  The.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes.    A  Conan  Doyle. 

Men  Who  Wrought,  The.    Ridgwell  Cullum, 

Meredith  Mystery,  The.     Natalie  Sumner  Lincoln. 

Midnight  of  the  Ranges.     George  Gilbert. 

Mine  with  the  Iron  Door,  The.     Harold  Bell  Wright, 

Mischief  Maker,  The.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Missioner,  The.     E.  Phillips  Oppenheim. 

Miss  Million*s  Maid.    Berta  Ruck. 

Money,  Love  and  Kate.    Eleanor  H.  Porter. 

Money  Master,  The.     Gilbert  Parker. 

Money  Moon,  Tha    Jeffery  Farnol. 

Moonlit  Way,  The.     Robert  W.  Chambers. 

More  Limehouse  Nights.    Thomas  Burke. 

More  Tish.     Mary  Roberts  Rinehart. 

Moreton  Mystery,  The.     Elizabeth  Deieans. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sen.    Louise  Jordan  Miin. 

Mr.  Grex  of  Monte  Carlo.    E.  Phillips  Oppenheimo 

Mr.  Pratt.    Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mr.  Pratt's  Patients.    Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Mrs.  Red  Pepper.     Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Mr.  Wu.    Louise  Jordan  Miln. 

My  Lady  of  the  North.    Randall  Parrish. 

My  Lady  of  the  South.    Randall  Parish. 

Mystery  Girl,  The.    Carolyn  Wells. 


m                 14  DAY  USE                   1 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

18  D£C'59Uf 

REC'D  LD 

DEC  7  - 1959 

J 

1 

rM\Y4-s5ST4tai^                                Univ^^£igSL.i. 

IB  33443 


